The Private Wound
by JuliennePotato
Summary: A fairy tale like no other - one of flying. Fighting. Friendship. Hate. Jealousy. Revenge. Fairies of all natures and descriptions. Technology. Bravery. Cowardly actions. Strongest men. Lies. Truths. Chases. Escapes. Flatulent dwarves. And bad puns.
1. Curtain Up

The Private Wound

**Summary: **Artemis begins to question his intelligence when a mysterious man manages to trap him in his own home, seemingly effortlessly. Will the fairies have to save themselves this time?

**Author's Note: **Hello there, old friends and new! This is a rather hefty Author's Note because I feel like the beginning is the best place to explain this sort of thing. This story is a kind-of sequel to A Root and Growl. Pre-reading is not vital, although I'd be thrilled if you did (All you need to know otherwise is that Root is still alive after the events of _The Opal Deception._ Pre-reading would just make this story nice and canonical...ish :) )  
Readers of A Root and Growl may notice (although probably not until later chapters) that this story was mentioned in the aforementioned story - Chapter Seven, I think - although it's been tweaked slightly so I can explore it without having to be stuck on a one-character perspective.

If you're still there after all that, you'd better get cracking with it!

**

* * *

Outside Fowl Manor, Ireland, 9 p.m.**

"He doesn't look much like a genius to me."

The man sighed over the radio, emphasising it forcefully so that whatever minion had just decided to share his opinion with the Boss would know how unwelcome it was.

"And what, pray tell, does a genius look like to you?"

The man shuffled his feet awkwardly, making a great show of rearranging the various equipments needed for espionage before realising the Boss couldn't see him.

"I dunno...I just thought he'd look more...wild. Einstein-y."

The Boss bit back an impatient 'tuh', but it was a close run thing. He had to bring the employees down intellectually, otherwise they would not be afraid of him.

"You are aware that Einstein refused to wear socks and was a terrible speller?"

"Exactly!"

The minion was not going to have a good night.

**Fowl Manor Kitchen**

"I'm just saying it's not the best idea."

Artemis paused, thoughtfully folding several Armani jumpers. "I'm listening."

Butler knew that his young Master was most likely humouring him, but it was his duty as a bodyguard to protect his principal. Or, at least, make sure the principal was aware of the risks before plunging ahead and doing it anyway.

"This man -",

"Eduard Novikov."

Butler smiled, a brief glare of teeth that was more out of manners than affection.

"Thank you. This Novikov is an incredibly powerful man. It would be foolish to expect he would just hand it back over without some sort of payment: probably in blood."

"I know that.

"Which is why I'm going to steal it back."

Despite his strength, Butler actually felt his knees go weak at those words. He quickly gripped on to a counter to mask the shaking in his body.

"Steal it back?"

"Yes. I didn't stutter, did I?"

The Eurasian thought of reprimanding the boy, for a second, as his fatherly instincts flared up. Then he noticed Artemis had stopped folding, and turned to face him with his arms folded instead and an understanding expression on his face.

"I know you worry, old friend. After all, what would your _sensei_ say if you managed to lose your fourteen-year-old charge?"

Butler nodded weakly. He knew Artemis understood that their relationship was more than just professional, and that Artemis was, in no way, a normal fourteen-year-old boy. But barely anybody else seemed to.

"But listen to them, Butler," he said, making an expansive gesture out into the hallway where his parents could be heard, laughing and joking. "I can't bring him back just to lose him again."

"I don't think your Mother would be too happy about her only son putting his life in danger for her husband's freedom."

Artemis nodded. "That's why I'm not going to tell her."

**Outside Fowl Manor, 11p.m.**

"Bossman?"

The reply, when it came, was a sharp and irritated "What?"

"It's that...Butler...man. He's doing a sweep."

"So? You're hidden in the hedgerow, aren't you?"

"Yes, but...,"

The Boss sighed. _If you want something doing right..._

"What?"

"He's been looking over here a lot. Like staring straight at me."

The Boss sat up a little straighter now. If his operation was compromised before it even began by whatever shaven ape his Irish connection had dragged out of a bar somewhere, there would be hell to pay.

"Go a little lower. If you've hidden yourself _properly_, you should be all right."

The hired man swallowed audibly and wriggled his considerable girth into the smallest space of the hedgerow he could find. After another few tense minutes, Butler retreated back inside.

"I think he's gone, Boss."

There was a whoosh of exhaled air over the radio channel. "Good. Have you gathered enough intel.?"

He nodded, before realising, once again, that the Boss couldn't see him. "Yes, Boss."

"Okay. Move tonight. Make it quiet. I've made it easy for you."

The minion smiled, displaying crooked yellow teeth. His eye was still to the telescope, fixed on the back of Butler's head, clearly shutting down the Manor after deeming it safe. It was the biggest mistake the giant bodyguard had ever made.

"Over and out."

**Haven City, South Side, 2:55 a.m.**

Holly looked at the stranger in the mirror with increasing dislike.

The stranger looked back, a similar expression on her face. She had been made to turn down a Recon assignment - one of the first that had come her way since her promotion to Major - in order to appear as an official Guest of Honour for Commander Root's induction into the Council. But that wasn't what had put her in a such a bad mood.

She had to wear a _dress_.

Normally, she wasn't too bothered by the occasional slip back into femininity - as long as she kept her asexual nature around the Retrieval boys, why couldn't she keep her ears moisturised? - but the nature of the dress had her fervently hoping that Artemis would ring up with one of his harebrained adventures, or even (and this was the sign she had taken to mean that she was truly dreading putting in an appearance at the Haven City Hall) Opal Koboi miraculously escaping the twenty-four hour top-security prison she was incarcerated in, just so she had an excuse to miss the Ceremony.

The dress itself wasn't that bad, she supposed. A little too frilly at the top, but it was compensated for at the bottom as it tapered off around her knees. In fact, her appearance as a whole was fairly decent, the cerulean colour of the dress accenting her bronzed skin nicely. Even her hair, which she had always assumed that being less than an inch long meant nothing much could be done, had been styled, with a small fringe held in place by clips, allowing the rest of her hair to spike up like it did naturally. Make-up was nominal, due in part to her inability to apply mascara without giving one of her eyes a good poke.

It was the reaction to her appearance she was dreading.

Certainly, there had always been some over-zealous flyboys who had taken a shine to her - most notably Chix Verbal, although there had always been a fairly nasty rumour that he was simply trying to find out how she managed to keep her hair so controlled.

Different cultures, same clichés. When in doubt, attack the sexuality.

There was also a whisper that a certain Major - tipped for the recently vacated Commander's spot - held his colleague in a slightly more than professional light, and this was the main reason Holly was hoping for a death-or-glory adventure rather than attend the induction ceremony.

The nuclear clock on her bedside table flashed. Three a.m.

Showtime.

**Police Plaza, 2:55 a.m.**

"Trub."

There was no noise from the other side of the door. Corporal Grub Kelp pouted.

"Trub!"

This time, his words were followed by a particularly annoying series of bangs on the door. Grub sighed. It wasn't like his brother cared about his appearance. Most of the time he just rolled out of bed and in to his jumpsuit. If only most of the female population of the Plaza knew about _that_.

But Grub wasn't whining about his brother's sudden obsession over his appearance. If he knew Trouble at all - and as Grub washed his socks most of the time, he liked to think that he _did -_ this sudden meticulousness was due to the fact that a certain female Major was going to the same ceremony as his brother tonight, and it would be the first time she would see work-mad Trouble Kelp out of the matte-black jumpsuit he wore like a second skin.

In fact, Grub was whining because his hotshot brother: widely tipped to be the next Commander, as, after all, Root had spent the last six months training him to be, was going to the Induction Ceremony tonight, while Grub had to spend the night on the skeleton staff, with only the particularly caustic gnome - Sook, he thought the name was - from Internal Affairs for company.

Trouble himself was already ready. He had been for the last hour, and had spent that free time sitting on the hard wooden bench supplied in the bathroom, fingers clawing through his hair and his confidence in shreds. It wasn't the sheer scale of the operation he was undertaking that was causing the miniature and rather ill-timed mental breakdown; he had realised that, after tonight, when Root handed over his triple acorn insignia to be replaced with what he called 'a bloody pointy hat and a stick', that Major Trouble Kelp realised that he would be responsible for every single life in the division. A division that was alarmingly high in LEP fatalities.

So he had hidden in the bathroom.

_What sort of LEP officer hides from his responsibilities? Especially one who is now Commander in everything but name. You should go to Root. Tell him he can't join the Council because you're not ready._

Trouble thought out this suggestion. _No, his heart would probably explode._

"Trouble! You've got to go!" Grub's voice filtered into the bathroom, and the elder Kelp heard his brother continue muttering. The words 'unfair' and 'favouritism' could be heard every so often.

The fairy who would-be Commander gripped his thighs, mentally gearing himself up. After a few moments of practised breathing techniques, he pushed himself up.

Showtime.

**Fowl Manor Grounds, Ireland, 3 a.m.**

The fat man had been technically inside Fowl Manor for almost an hour now, without being spotted. Technically, because he wasn't actually inside the house. There was a roof over his head, but that was in the form of the garden marquee - a marquee! The man was fairly certain he couldn't even spell it.

He had been watching the CCTV Cameras as they swept the grounds in a uniform motion. Obviously, the big man had gone to bed. The spy had watched him, as, agonisingly slowly and almost as a conscious warning to the man, he had polished each of his twenty-seven guns and checked there was a loaded clip in every magazine.

However, he was also aware that a high-burglary risk estate like Fowl Manor would have some sort of technology to alert its occupants of a possible intruder, and he wasn't thinking of the tin-can-and-dog variety. It was even conceivable that the Irish boy had motion-sensor cameras that would wake up his bodyguard at the slightest movement.

So he did what he always did when he was facing a problem; he called the Boss.

"What?" The voice was much sleepier than it was angry this late at night.

"There are CCTV Cameras everywhere. I can't see a blind spot."

A loud and resigned groan met the Irish man's ears. "Idiot! I told you, I've made it easy for you. So easy, you should be able to walk in through the front doors!"

"How?"

"Never mind! You just do your job, and get out as soon as possible. I've disabled the security, but I don't think you'd like to meet the bodyguard in the middle of what you're going to do."

The man under the marquee shuddered. Now that was an understatement.

The Boss had terminated the link without a formal ending, but the man was already moving. The sun would be rising soon, and he had observed the activities of Fowl Manor's occupants enough for the last few days that he knew the bodyguard would be up for his work-out in less than an hour.

_If the alarm goes off, pretend you're a tourist. On private property. At three in the morning. _

He sighed, and placed his foot outside the marquee with infinite cautiousness.

Nothing happened.

Emboldened by this small triumph, he began to walk across the smoothly rippling lawn, a slight swagger in his step that was ruined by a noticeable flinch at every small noise.

He soon reached the front doors, unmolested. So far so good, but even if the Boss had disabled the security, the locks on the door were the old-fashioned deadbolt variety. He tugged the handle. Three of them, at the top, middle and bottom of the door. The man smiled for the second time that evening, pulling out a nasty-looking piece of machinery, and aiming the business end at the bolt in the middle, in the millimetres-wide gap the doors left. _A tool for every occasion_. He had once almost run a hardware store with that advertisement. He flicked a switch with his thumb, and a miniature welder's torch flared brilliant orange against the grey of the night-washed wood. He held his breath, working as quickly as possible. Within moments, the first bolt snapped, sending a twisting globule of molten metal plummeting to the floor, only to solidify halfway to make a cast-iron teardrop. Without even stopping the flame, he moved to the top bolt, letting the flame begin to feed on it. He could have gone for the bottom bolt and shouldered the door open, but then there was every chance that the bodyguard - who he assumed would have to be a light sleeper - would be woken, and come charging down to break whoever had broken in. So instead he melted all three bolts, and quietly opened the door to the lobby of Fowl Manor.

Showtime.

-

"You're not as fast as you were. That is fatal to your Principal. Your wheezing will kill your Principal."

Butler kept his head bowed. He may not like what was being said, but Madame Ko always spoke the truth. If she said your wheezing would kill your Principal, it would. If she said your unshaven hair would kill your Principal, it would.

She was circling him now, pacing the tiny, hill-top gazebo, eyeing his physique critically. To most, the almost seven-foot giant of a man was the most bulked-up example of the human anatomy they had ever seen, the potential it could reach with discipline. The gym near the Fowl family home had noticed a double fold increase in patrons after Butler was there during Artemis's time at school. But to Madame Ko, one slight imbalance, a heavier lean on one leg could mean failure.

"Your chest is hunched. You are in pain."

Butler nodded - one of the only times he would admit to physical discomfort was during his yearly assessment.

"Take off your shirt."

He did so; carefully unbuttoning the designer shirt with massive fingers to reveal a torso that could have been sculpted by Polyclitus, had he ever heard of stomach crunches. It also revealed the Kevlar strands that had become a permanent part of his make-up after his _very_ near-death experience last year. It had been covered using special pigment gel when he was mind-wiped, of course, but once he had regained his memories Butler had scrubbed it off, preferring not to hide behind masks and disguises.

The tiny Japanese woman touched the Kevlar almost reverentially, but Butler tensed his stomach muscles and squared his shoulders.

When the blow came, it was still unexpected and lightning-fast: a swift Karate chop to just below the darker section of skin. Despite all his training, Butler doubled over in pain, clutching his ribcage as he fought not to retreat to the foetal position.

Madame Ko turned her back, arms folded serenely on top of one another.

"You are dead. Therefore, your Principal is dead. You have failed."

And she left, beginning the descent back to her camp alone, leaving the world's third deadliest man fighting back tears of pain and shame.

**Fowl Manor, Ireland, 3:05 a.m.**

The intruder crept up the expansive stairway so quietly it was almost comical. His arms were raised in a traditional film-style of stealth, and his eyes were sweeping from side to side nervously, as though an unforeseen army of enemies was about to come pouring out of the 18th-century walnut panelling. He didn't relax as he reached the top landing, knowing that the door immediately in front of him housed the (hopefully sleeping) behemoth of a bodyguard. Still, he couldn't bite back a malicious _whoosh! _of laughter at the thought of the Eurasian waking up in a few minutes, only to find his charge missing. It was a delicious, poetic justice. Or something like it. He had never been very good at English at school.

-

Butler opened his eyes. He was in his room at Fowl Manor. The gazebo exam with Madame Ko had been a dream, but his chest still felt as though it were wrapped in razor-wire. With effort, he twisted his head to read the red digital display of the clock. 3:04. He sighed. It almost wasn't worth going back to sleep, but with Master Artemis's looming excursion, his ageing bones were going to need all the rest they could get beforehand. One rarely got to sleep on Artemis's time.

A creak in the floorboard outside perked up his hearing. To most, it would have been dismissed as the settling of an old house, or inefficient plumbing. But Butler wasn't trained to dismiss things like that. Without a second thought, he was out of bed and crossing to look at the CCTV images. Before he reached his destination, however, another noise had him barrelling down the hallway, gun in hand.

**Somewhere in Eastern Europe, 5:12 a.m. (+2 GMT)**

The Boss stretched his fingers like a pianist before dormant ivory. He should have been asleep a long time ago - after all, a genius needs their rest - but he couldn't resist showing the jumped-up little Irish boy what stealth _really_ meant.

He fingered a button on his desktop fondly for a moment, before extending a manicured nail and judiciously pushing it.

**Fowl Manor, one minute earlier**

The unwelcome Irishman was already envisioning what he could buy with his payment when he reached Artemis Fowl Junior's door. A yacht was forefront, as well as a large stake in a beer company. The thought had him salivating as he placed a fleshy hand on the doorknob, and he quickly licked away the offending substance. His plan was going swimmingly. The hypodermic needle was already clutched in his free hand, and he was fairly certain a slim teenager would not been too difficult for him to carry to the jeep he had parked in a field a couple of miles away.

Then the 150-decibel alarm went off.

The poor man barely had time to register the sudden onslaught of noise and light before 200-pounds of trained muscle slammed into him. _Bugger_.

Artemis emerged about half a minute after Butler's emphatic tackle, eyes alert despite the fact he had just been rather rudely awakened.

"What's the matter, Butler?"

The Eurasian, who had been busily hog-tying the still disorientated man with the silk curtain-pull from the nearest window, looked up to find his charge's eyes staring at the man in what could only be described as disbelief.

"A friend of yours?"

Butler grimaced, working the tip of his Sig Sauer into the man's cheek. "I don't know how he managed to get so far without setting any of the alarms off."

"Obviously there is a design flaw somewhere," although Butler noticed Artemis's nose wrinkle as he said it, "I shall have to make some modifications."

"You could start with encrypting your hard-drive properly."

The two Irishmen in the hallway looked at each other in puzzlement for a moment: the voice had come from neither boy nor man. Finally, the man Butler was sat on spoke.

"Look in my right trouser pocket. There's a radio transmitter."

Butler hid his shock that whatever he was sat on was actually a man quite well, and checked where he said. There _was_ a radio transmitter, and, after checking it was free of any explosive or otherwise incendiary devices, threw it to Artemis.

"This is Artemis Fowl. Who do I have the pleasure of talking to?" Ever the gracious host, especially with potential threats.

"There's time enough for names later, Mr. Fowl, although I already know all of yours, and your contacts. Especially your less...sociable ones, if I make myself clear, and I _do_ hope I am doing."

The voice was crisp Southern English, tinged with the clipped German phrasing.

Artemis's stomach dropped, but he hid it well. "I'm sorry, I'm afraid I don't understand you. Perhaps there is a language barrier?"

The voice chuckled. "Oh, very clever, Mr. Fowl, but then again, you're famed for that."

This was straying rather too much into clichéd action film dialogue for Artemis's liking. "What do you want?"

"Many things, Mr. Fowl. For now, I content myself in proving that you are not infallible. You will notice that your CCTV images are curiously blank as of the events of this morning, until your intruder seems to 'appear'. Even that little mishap with your front door bolts went unrecorded. How odd." Artemis could hear the satisfied smile in his voice as he delivered the final line.

"Sleep well."

* * *

So, that's the first chapter over and done with. I apologise in advance for making the 'Boss' a rather unfairly stereotypical Eastern European, but there is method to my madness, you'll just have to be patient. :)

What do you think? Reviewers get their character of choice to boost the ego of, as they're all rather self-critical at the moment.


	2. Prelude

The Private Wound

**Summary: **Artemis begins to question his intelligence when a mysterious man manages to trap him in his own home, seemingly effortlessly. Will the fairies have to save themselves this time?

**Author's Note:** Alright, ready for Chapter two? I think this one raises a few more questions than it answers, but then, if I answered all my questions straight off, I wouldn't get to torment you all as much. :)  
Oh, and a few of you will begin to see the slight theatre references I've got going on here (Chapter titles, the _showtime _bits in Chapter one, etc.). If anyone can tell me how the overall title links in, I think I may have to give them some sort of chocolate-y based medal.

* * *

**City Hall, Haven, 3:20 a.m.**

He would give wait until she finally showed up, and then kill her.

Holly was late to the Ceremony's opening. Normally, her tardiness would have gone unnoticed by any of the high-ranking officials other than Root, who would take her in to a corner for a 'quiet word' that half the hall would hear. But tonight, of all nights, Root had _needed_ her to be on time. It was not just a matter of personal support, which, although he would never admit it, the elf was the closest he had to a true friend. She was an official guest of honour. And as such, the party could not get underway until she showed her sorry hide.

Even worse, Foaly was standing next to the soon-to-be-ex Commander, with his arm, rather annoyingly, around a female that Root assumed must be pretty for a centaur. Root balled his fists. In his opinion, being happy should be made illegal until he said otherwise. What other point was there to being on the Council?

The Centaur nudged the Commander, apparently oblivious to his inner musing.

"Hey, Chief, I thought you said you weren't bringing anyone?"

Root sighed. "Ho ho. I assume you're referring to my gut?"

Foaly looked slightly put out that Root had pre-empted his joke, but the dejected way he answered intrigued him a lot more.

"What's the matter? You kept saying the Council didn't understand the LEP: you should be happy you're in a position to change that."

He nodded dispassionately. Foaly was about to question further, but the throng of less important city members parted like the Mud Man's legendary red sea in front of Moses to reveal what Root could only describe, were he a poetic man, as something close to Aphrodite borne on the surf.

Next to the Commander, Trouble Kelp swallowed audibly, his palms suddenly tingling. _D'Arvit._

**Haven City Centre, three minutes earlier.**

_Oh, no. Oh no oh no oh no..._

An Atlantean tourist gnome was taking a picture of his family in front of Spud's Spud Emporium. On any other day, Holly would gladly have waited until they had finished with their cooing at the plaque above the popular takeaway restaurant. After all, it was Trouble Kelp's name in bronze up there. Holly loved to embarrass him by telling him who she had seen admiring his plaque on her way to work.

But she was late, and although it was not an altogether uncommon occurrence, it would be especially damaging tonight The punishment would be far worse than a lecture from Root about a possible demotion to traffic. Over the past four years, as she had proven herself in numerous dangerous situations, Root's threats had lost their sting.

However, today she expected an actual demotion to traffic would be the least of her worries. If she was lucky, Root might just let her stay on the force as a coffee elf.

So, shouting her apologies to the family, she dashed through the shot. When the father of the family would get the picture developed, an odd cerulean blur would obscure his wife's figure, and he would be made to sleep on the couch for the next three weeks for commenting that it looked better that way.

She wasn't even sure what had caused her to become so late that she had attempted running through the pedestrianised city centre. She left her apartment at three a.m., as she had planned. It should have taken her less than five minutes to reach the City Hall from there, but both of the tunnels that led to the quickest way in and out of the city were cordoned off, so she had been forced to renavigate, to the point that when she finally reached the Centre, and glanced up at the clock tower, the time had read a rather shocking 3:17. Two minutes late. She knew Root well enough that even just two minutes would not be 'shrugged off' by her senior officer.

By three twenty, the City Hall was in sight, but she had a stitch waging war down the right side of her torso. Nevertheless, she broke into a shambling run once she spotted the restless crowd, dressed to impress, muttering to one another, faces showing a rather blatant dislike, and then Root's face, strangely pale and downcast, looking as though he was resisting an overwhelming urge to punch Foaly.

_Well, at least some things never change... _

The crowd saw her coming a few metres before she would have to begin pushing them out of her way, and parted accordingly. She flushed, deepening her already red-from-exercise face.

She approached the platform with the ceremony's guests of honour on it with her head bowed, careful not to make eye contact with either Root, whose rage concentrated into one look may actually have made her spontaneously combust, or Foaly, who would no doubt make her laugh and get her into an even worse position than she had managed herself.

As inconspicuously as possible, Holly took her place next to Caballine, surreptitiously giving the centaur a once-over. Foaly had never had the foresight to introduce the two females before, as he still couldn't believe his luck that a female centaur had looked his way, so the night was going to be full of stiff, polite conversation before Holly deemed her decent - or otherwise, although she doubted whether Foaly would take it very well if she didn't like her.

Chairman Cahartez, the man responsible for most of the city's supply of vole curry, took to the microphone stand placed centre-stage.

"Now that we are all here," he said in a wheezy, dry sort of voice, "I would like to welcome you all to the Induction of our newest Council Member. He has been an upstanding pillar of the community for many..."

Holly yawned. She noticed that to her right, Commander Root himself was having difficulty keeping his eyes focused. And this was just the pre-party speech. There were at least four more once they entered city hall before Root was accepted into the Council. Plus an additional one made by the Commander that it was widely speculated was to see whether he had the skills needed to make his speeches as boring as possible, and send his listeners in to varying degrees of comatose. Holly noticed her mentor's lips moving silently, obviously recounting the speech he - or more likely, a poor pixie intern - had prepared earlier. She let her own eyes glaze over. It wasn't as though she would be spending the evening doing much more than shaking hands with people who had been calling for her removal from duty since the moment she had entered the LEP Academy anyway.

Finally after Chairman Cahartez finished talking - at such a rate that Holly became convinced someone had set a time-stop around the Hall and forgotten to tell her - he led the platform party into the main building. Those invited to the ball began to push quite inelegantly forward, while unimportant passers-by strolled away to face the queues of the congested inner city.

Root cut across Foaly and Caballine, tracking in diagonals so he wasn't walking against the thronging crowd. When he reached Holly, he didn't stop, but wrapped one relatively large hand around her upper arm and hauled her to the side, next to City Hall's building but not inside it. Once he reached his destination, his grip didn't slacken, possibly well aware of the knowledge that if it did, Holly would try to slip away claiming the crowd had dragged her with it.

As the last, straggling party of gnomes walked through the double doors into the ball, Root turned to face Holly.

"Explain."

His voice was fairly controlled, for him. Holly swallowed. Nothing she said would make her situation any better, despite her honest attempt to arrive on time - early, in fact.

"I really tried to get here on time. The main thoroughfares were down. I had to take Dobbs Lane, but I know you don't like excuses. I'm sorry, sir."

The final part was said as a last-ditch attempt to appeal to Root's better nature. During her explanation, his face has slowly been turning red, from his chin upwards, as though someone were pouring the angry colouring into him. However, when he spoke, his voice was low and hissing, which seemed somehow more angry than if he had shouted himself hoarse. Holly suspected he was attempting to save his voice for his speech.

"Major Short, do you realise that this is one of the most important events of my career, and that tonight, of all nights, I actually needed you to be on time?"

Holly hung her head. But despite her feelings of guilt, she felt a faint glow of honour that Root had needed her. Who would have thought, when she had joined the Recon squad, her notoriously sexist-and-proud Commander would need his spitfire of a Major by his side on something other than an assignment?

"Well?" Apparently the question had not been rhetorical.

"I'm sorry, sir," she said again, sticking to the safer title as she wasn't sure whether it was still appropriate to call him 'Commander'. "I tried, I really did. Somebody should speak to traffic about picking their days for maintenance."

It wasn't a particularly good joke, but it was Holly's attempt at lightening the mood. She noticed Root's jaw tighten slightly. _Uh oh_.

"I didn't know traffic was trying to fix the thoroughfares."

_This is good, _Holly thought. _Small talk_. _Now, steer him into the Hall and stay as far out of his way as possible for the rest of the night._

"Neither did I. We'll have to get them to send out memos in the future." She twitched her head towards the door, pretending to be listening intently. "I think I hear music. We should get inside. I don't think the rest of your Council members will be too happy about you missing your own ceremony."

Root allowed himself to be led into the hall. "Don't think I'll just forget, Holly. You may find yourself on the receiving end of a few unpleasant jobs at the LEP."

But Holly just smiled brightly. "Forget what, sir?"

Apparently the mood had not been lightened enough to allow that joke. The Commander glared at her before stalking off, presumably to growl at someone else.

_Oh, yes. It's going to be a fun evening._

**Fowl Manor, Ireland, 3:20 a.m.**

"You should go back to bed, Artemis."

He looked up to find Butler's features arranged in what he guessed was a compassionate expression. Behind the veneer, however, Artemis could tell his manservant was just as perturbed by their unwelcome visitor and his radio companion as he was.

The radio itself was still loosely grasped in the boy's hands. It had been silent for over ten minutes, and Artemis had not even attempted to re-contact the mysterious man on the radio. If he was smart enough to hack into Fowl Manor's server undetected, he must have covered his tracks equally well.  
Worse still, was his phrase '_less sociable ones...' _There was no doubt in the young genius's mind that his less sociable friends were the fairies. After all, it was not like he had many other friends to bandy about.

"Have you checked the CCTV footage?" He asked, choosing to ignore the previous question.

Butler sighed. "Yes, Artemis."

"And?"

"It's just like he said. The Manor is completely silent from when I locked it at midnight, until this man appears outside your room at twelve minutes past three."

"Is it possible you forgot to activate the alarm?"

The Eurasian considered being offended. After all, he was a Butler; _the_ Butler. If he had forgotten to turn on the alarm he wouldn't be worthy of guarding a spaniel, let alone a Fowl. Then he realised Artemis was trying to eliminate all other possibilities before proceeding with a counterattack.

"No, I remember doing so, and the footage shows me as I typed in the code."

The boy nodded. He had expected as much.

"And there's no way this man -", here, Artemis waved his arm in the vague direction of the bound and newly sedated Irishman on the carpet, "-could have been in the house already? Disabled the cameras manually?"

Butler shook his head. He had checked the cameras himself after sedating the intruder. And it wouldn't make sense for the cameras to suddenly switch themselves back on after being sabotaged. Artemis was grasping at rather illogical straws.

Which left one, rather unappetizing solution.

They had been set up.

**Somewhere in Eastern Europe, 5:25 a.m. (+2 GMT)**

_'After the battle of Taillte, Demons wanted to continue fighting the Mud People, who were at a disadvantage because of their primitive weaponry and lack of magical ability. However, each of the remaining seven families of fay were in favour of retreating underground, as they recognised the threat of the frequency of human breeding. Numbers would eventually win over magic. As a result of this, seven of the most powerful Demon warlocks...'_

He kneaded his forehead. He had read that particular passage, the translated opening to the Demon Gospel, over a hundred times, and yet his mind still had problems processing the information. When he had first hacked into the Fowl boy's home server, he had thought he'd stumbled upon the amateurish attempts at a fantasy novel. But he also had access to the boy's personal diary, and he seemed convinced that he had kidnapped a member of the first family - an elf named Holly Short, to be precise, who he had gone on a number of subsequent excursions with. Artemis had noted their slow evolution from antagonists to allies, and, after their last adventure, to friends. He had also written in great detail about how he had managed to escape from seemingly impossible situations: with fairy help. Of course, he had heard rumours about the boy. How he was able to disappear in thin air. To be in two places on completely opposite sides of the world, within an hour of each sighting. But he had dismissed it as fantasists, building on Fowl's reputation for intelligence. After all, he had been subject to a number of speculations about his abilities himself, when he was younger.

But after reading the Irish boy's diaries, he noticed how the stories seemed to make much more sense. He could disappear because of an invention by a...centaur...named Foaly (whom Artemis seemed to admire despite his sarcastic nature). Cam foil, or something like it. He could appear to be in two places at once because the fairies had shuttle ports in every country in the world, leading to the central city of Haven.

So he had begun to dig: to find any other shreds of evidence that would corroborate the boy's version of events. He found that once he knew the exact phrases to search for, a number of shady internet sites surfaced, all claiming to bear photographic evidence of the existence of the subterranean life forms. Strangely, these sites would disappear within a day or two of his discovery. Foaly's work, or so it seemed.

The man cracked his knuckles. He had dropped the rather obvious clue that he knew the Irish millionaire's big secret, gotten rid of a rather odious worker, and brushed up on his fairy knowledge. All in all, it was a good night.

**Haven City Hall, 3:25 a.m.**

There was another speech going on in the background, providing a constant buzzing noise underneath the chatter of the more animated party members.

Holly had managed to fight her way to Foaly, Caballine and a rather uncomfortable-looking Trouble Kelp. It wasn't too difficult to spot them, as the centaurs were the only ones of their species in the room, but getting over to them was easier said than done.

Foaly grinned at her as she came over. "I bet you miss your buzz baton."

"You have no idea." She said as ruffled her hair as a way to vent the pent-up frustration pushing through a crowd can bring.

Caballine was eyeing her interestedly. Holly noticed that she kept nudging Foaly in the ribs with the elbow she had threaded around his arm. Apparently they hadn't been dating long enough for her to know that nothing short of hitting Foaly over the head with whatever you wanted him to look at would bring him out of his egotistical stupor.

"Foaly?"

"Yes?"

"Aren't you going to introduce us?"

The centaur blinked at Holly, a blank look on his face. "You already know each other's names."

The elfin Major gritted her teeth and rolled her eyes at Caballine in a clear gesture that said _males_. Caballine smiled ruefully, which Holly took to mean _tell me about it._

Satisfied, Holly stuck out her right hand for the female centaur to shake. "Major Holly Short. Unwitting friend of Foaly. I've tried to get rid of him, but he comes back like a rash."

"A nice rash." Came the rather petulant response from the subject, clearly annoyed that the two most important females in his life had just managed to form a bond which centred around the fact that he was an idiot.

His date let out a small breath of laughter, and Holly felt a grin spread across her face like a sunrise. Foaly had managed to find a decent match for himself. She would have to begin coaching him on normal dating techniques.

The pre-meeting tension from beforehand had begun to dissipate, and Holly had managed to procure a drink of beetlejuice in a champagne flute. She couldn't have any form of alcohol, as she was on backup call, but standing with her friends, out of the line of Root's fire, she felt she didn't need it anyway.

Until a small, transparent looking pixie knocked into her from behind, making her spill the blackish liquid all over her dress, leaving a quickly drying stain in the oddly familiar shape of an ancient fairy emblem, used to signify a battlefield. Holly looked at it, cross-eyed.

"I hope that's not an omen."

There was silence from the rest of her small gathering. She looked up, surprised that Foaly hadn't made some pithy comment about her odd stain. She found him watching the pixie who had knocked in to her with an expression close to awe on his face.

"Foaly?"

The centaur blinked a couple of times, opening and closing his mouth in an attempt to form words. Finally, after physically shaking his head, he managed to speak.

"That pixie was Doctor Rhodius Bentwood."

After a distinct lack of reaction from Holly, Foaly clucked his tongue impatiently.

"He was my professor at College! Incredibly intelligent, even for a Pixie. I heard he's gone a bit mad as he's aged, quoting passages from the Book as though they were the gospel truth, but a genius nonetheless."

Holly smiled, as one would smile to a small child after they had told you the moon was entirely hollow, made of cheese and had little mice living inside it, slowly eating it away.

"Scoff all you want, but I'm telling you he's possibly the second most intelligent fairy under the world."

There was no need to ask who the first one was.

"Intelligent or not, he owes me for the amount of cleaning cycles I'm going to have to put this dress through to get it clean." Holly grumbled, as she dabbed uselessly at the stain on her dress. Eventually, she realised she would have to attempt some sort of D-I-Y cleaning in one of City Hall's bathrooms.

She turned to the group. "I'll be back soon."

Foaly called after her as she turned to leave.

"Is that a threat or a promise?"

**Haven City Hall, East Corridor, 3:45 a.m.**

Root ducked out into the nearest corridor and sighed loudly. He reached, on instinct, into his front breast pocket, which was commonly known to be his cigar pocket. Instead he found an overly dressy corsage pinned to the front, and an empty pocket behind. He swore loudly. It may have been one of the most important days of his career, but it was also one of the most trying days of his life. He wasn't sure how he was going to manage spending all of his working hours with the stuffed-shirt council members. He could barely make it through five minutes of talking about budget cuts - and that was only because Foaly's exorbitant budget had been laid on the table to be slashed.

As he was muttering to himself, he watched a pretty elf disappear into the bathroom in a flurry of cerulean petticoats. _Do they still wear petticoats?_  
Root thought it was an odd train of thought, to be wondering about a female's undergarments in any context other than the obvious, but he embraced it nonetheless. It kept his mind from thinking about the rather disastrous way his evening was turning out. His soon-to-be replacement seemed to have adopted the spine of a goldfish. His most decorated officer, the pride of the LEP and an example of his mentoring skills had shown up sweaty and late, and try as he might, he couldn't remember any of the words to his speech past 'good evening.'

He consoled himself with a thought. _At least it can't get any worse._

Julius Root had never heard of Murphy's Law. If he had, he never would have thought those words, for, as he did, as though some cruel God of Fate was watching the Commander's progress and testing his resolve for fun, Root found the entire building plunged into deep, inky blackness.

_Great, _he thought_. Just great._

* * *

So, what's the verdict? Are we liking it so far? The last chapter was a little top-heavy on the Artemis stuff, and I thought this one balanced that out nicely. But that's just me.

Reviewers get their choice of character to accompany them in a blackout:)


	3. Act One

The Private Wound

**Summary: **Artemis begins to question his intelligence when a mysterious man manages to trap him in his own home, seemingly effortlessly. Will the fairies have to save themselves this time?

**Author's Note: **Well, I got this chapter written quite quickly! We have another character to add to the mix (who I thought I'd be terrible at writing, but found he was quite fun), and I'm betting there are going to be claims of OOC-ness in this chapter, but I honestly think the character in question would act like that in their predicament (and if, after reading this, you couldn't figure out who I'm talking about, you obviously thought so too!)  
A big thank you to **ilex-ferox,** my lonely reviewer for the last chapter (hint,hint)!

**

* * *

Fowl Manor, Ireland, 4:30 a.m.**

Artemis's study looked like the site of a technological massacre. Shards of hard drive and countless fibre-optic cables lay strewn across the floor, all leading to the central point of impact where Artemis Fowl himself sat soldering a silicon chip to a motherboard.

After a security breach of that magnitude, many normal recipients would be in states of shock or hysteria, but, after reaching the unpleasant realisation that there was a hole in his security big enough to allow an eastern European megalomaniac and his greasy accomplice into his family home, Artemis had retreated to the study and, several minutes later, could be heard disassembling his computers like a man possessed.

While he worked, his mind was unusually preoccupied. It was true that he could concentrate on several things at once, but he found himself devoting an inordinate amount of brain space to why the man on the radio had double-crossed his colleague. Whatever the answer, it didn't bode well for the Fowl boy.

He would also have to figure out a way to tell the fairies that it was due to his own lack of foresight that another human knew of the existence of the People. That particular conversation was not very high on his 'things I want to do' list. He would have to neutralise the threat alone before telling them what had happened, or risk another mind-wipe.

That fact alone made his job harder. The man had been so thorough, had he not told Artemis himself that he had been inside his hard drive, he never would have guessed. There was no trace, electronic or otherwise. It was at times like this when he needed Foaly's expertise, with his vast database and stealth scopes the centaur could tell Artemis everything he needed to know about the man - and much more that he didn't - within seconds. But he couldn't contact him, or any of the other fairies, and it was with that knowledge that he realised how much he had come to rely on them.

Having reassembled one of his computers, using a 256-bit encryption as a stopgap before he had time to set up an eternity code, he logged on.

Or, more accurately, he _tried _to log on.

His computer would start, directing him to the loading screen, but instead of going further and asking for a password, it would state that he did not have the authority to log on to that machine and promptly switch itself off.

Artemis growled before he could stop himself. Computers and computing came as naturally to him as breathing, and yet he was being beaten, seemingly effortlessly, by a man who could control Fowl Manor's server from over two thousand miles away.

He would have liked to meditate on the matter, and was indeed settling into the lotus position to do just that when Butler burst into the room.

-

Butler was angry.

It was not a state many people saw him in and lived to tell the tale, but right now, the person his anger was directed at was rather conveniently on another continent, and so he had taken to pacing the halls of the Manor with a set in his jaw, scrutinising every surface as though it had caused him personal offence.

He reached the window of the first floor landing, and glanced outside. It was late Spring, and so the sun was already beginning to rise, casting a washed-out orange glow on the surface of the gardens.

It also illuminated several barrels of sniper rifles, pointed directly at him.

Instinct took over, causing him to dive into the nearest corner, minimising his body space. He did this just before a hail of bullets shattered the glass into such small pieces it looked almost liquid as it cascaded to the floor.

_Shoot to kill. Police forces almost never shoot to kill. They must have a rather exceptional reason._

An electronically amplified voice echoed across the grounds and in through the open window.

"You in there. We know about the biological weapons you have and are authorised to use deadly force if necessary. Hand yourselves in."

_Biological weapons? We don't even use biological washing powder..._

It was then that he realised what had happened.

-

Artemis opened one eye as Butler came into the room, managing to ask more questions than if he had actually spoken.

"We're under siege. He's called the Garda and said we're holding weapons for germ warfare. We're stuck here, Artemis."

"Couldn't we just prove that we have no weapons?"

Butler raised an eyebrow.

"All right. No _biological _weapons."

"They're shooting to kill. Quite enthusiastically. I don't think they'll give us chance to negotiate. If we call and say we have no weapons, they'll probably say we're lying and shoot us anyway. And if we hand ourselves in, they'll probably plant the evidence on us so their investigation doesn't look like a mistake."

"Are we quite sure it's him?"

"It would be too much of a coincidence to say otherwise. I think this is another of his games."

The boy _hum_-ed his agreement.

"Do you have a plan?"

Artemis looked up, a flicker of uncertainty in his eyes that was more terrifying for Butler than the thought of being ripped to shreds by the waiting machine-guns outside.

"I think at this point, old friend, we need a miracle."

Silence pressed down on them in the moments following this admission. Artemis Fowl was never caught without a plan. He could out-manoeuvre anybody with a series of bluffs, double-bluffs and clever wordplay. Butler was stunned, and he was sure that emotion translated to his face, judging from the embarrassed way Artemis avoided his eyes.

They had no plan. It was kill or be killed. And he had no doubt in his mind who would win between him and a crack-team of Emergency Response snipers.

Each was lost in thoughts of their untimely demise. So lost, that it took the sound of a miniature explosion coming from the wine cellar to bring them back to their senses.

**Haven City Hall, forty-five minutes earlier**

Holly dashed into the bathroom on the East corridor, more out of a desire to continue avoiding the Commander, who was stood quite lethargically in the corridor than of a willingness to remove the stain from her dress. Lili Frond, the erstwhile face of the LEP - her role as chief promoter had been downplayed following Holly's series of triumphant missions - was standing in front of the mirror, stroking a brush of loaded mascara over her lashes with practised ease. Once she saw Holly, however, she packed her make-up bag away with a haughty air and flounced out.

_Alone at last. _

She leant against the rim of the bathroom sink, breathing out heavily. While it was true she had been enjoying herself for the previous half-hour with Foaly, Caballine and a strangely subdued Trouble, she would still rather have been in the LEPrecon office. She was not designed for lavish parties and restricting dresses. That was much more the realm of the socialite who had just left the room.

_Just a few more hours. Let the Commander make his speech, make your excuses and leave._

The Major turned to check her appearance in the mirror before heading back out into the dressed-up party.

_What I'd do for a distraction._

With that thought, rather melodramatically, the already dim lights in the bathroom turned off, leaving a glowing afterimage in Holly's eyes.

She smiled widely, sure that her grin provided some sort of light in the room, making her look like some sort of reverse Cheshire cat. _Perfect._

_-_

"D'Arvit!"

It was still blacker than a dwarf-made tunnel in the East corridor, but the Commander had managed to inch his way over to the double doors that led into the main hall. Only to find they were locked. He ground his teeth against a veritable stream of swearwords that were brewing in his throat, and contented himself to kick the door instead - an action he regretted instantly when his toes crumpled against the reinforced steel frame.

He could hear the crowd in the hall managing, through the phenomena of Mob Psychology, to convince themselves that they were all going to die. There was one voice shouting above the terrified cries of the public though, Root noted with a hint of pride. _Trouble Kelp_.

"Ow!"

The Commander turned, squinting ineffectually to find the source of the noise. Holly had just fallen over a potted plant that had been placed just to the left of the ladies' room in a vain attempt to spruce up the corridor.

"Major Short?"

"Commander? Is that you?" Holly asked, peering through the darkness.

"What's your status, Major?"

Holly let out a breath of laughter, even as she sent a few sparks of magic down to her bruised shin. _Heal._

Root saw the blue light as it travelled from Holly's fingers to a red-looking patch of exposed skin. He followed the light before it faded, kneeling down by his sprawling officer.

"Are you all right?" He asked again, more personally this time.

"Nothing a shot of magic can't fix. I'm not running so hot, though."

The Commander noticed. Her face, coloured strangely blue by the reflected light of the sparks, was tight with exertion and a thin sheen of sweat covered her brow.

Root put out his hand to help her up as the magic finished its job.

"What's with the power failure, anyway? I can't imagine City Hall running out of nuclear packs. Foaly upgraded it a few weeks ago."

Root snorted. "Since when did the centaur's inventions become infallible?"

Holly nodded, although only half-heartedly. Foaly's inventions only failed if there was someone on the other end to sabotage them.

"Do you have your communicator?"

The question seemed so out-of-place that Holly did a double take. "Why?"

"Somebody's locked us out of the main hall. I'd like to have a word with that somebody."

Holly reached into her bag with a certain air of trepidation, pulling out her purple communicator. She sincerely hoped Root would overlook the fact that number '1' on her speed-dial was Artemis Fowl.

He did, only grunting his disapproval. After a moment, he had selected Foaly's number and the device began to ring.

And it didn't stop.

Eventually, the automated 'error' recording began to play, stating that the fairy they were trying to contact was out of reach.

"Are you sure he had it with him?" Holly's voice was tinged with hope.

"Positive. This is Foaly we're talking about. He doesn't go to the bathroom without checking you have three ways of contacting him first."

There was silence for a moment. "So what now?"

"We do a sweep of the building. I think we're the only ones not inside the hall, but we should check first. It could just be a bad reception."

Holly nodded, her jaw set, and they began to feel their way through the gloom. _Two elves, one wearing high heels and neither carrying weapons. A potentially serious situation and no way of contacting the inner hall for backup. We'll be fine, I'm sure._

_-_

They finished the sweep inside the antechamber which led into the hall. As Root had suspected, the entire building appeared to be deserted, and, worse still, Holly had found a small, titanium-enforced box hidden in a particularly shadowy section of hallway, so dark it would have been hard to see even in blinding halogen light. She put her communicator on top, and the omni-sensor on the base of the little gadget read the contents. An electromagnetic pulse. No wonder their call to Foaly didn't connect.

The unwelcome surprises didn't end there. When they had checked the generator room to see if there was any way they could switch the lights back on, they were driven away by a thick plume of black smoke. It wasn't just a coincidence. Someone had thrown a Messy Grenade into the room.

Messy grenades were so named because they were completely inefficient, often killed whoever was within a twenty-metre vicinity of the explosion, and sent the same amount of carbon dioxide into the air as a Mud Man's 200-mile car journey would. They had been outlawed by the Atlantis Weapons Agreement almost two centuries ago. It didn't bode well that one had just been used to turn the entire power supply of City Hall into so much shrapnel and radioactive waste.

Root motioned to Holly to follow him to the main doors, where a little light from the outside threw their faces into greyish relief.

"Do you have any cunning plans, Major?"

Holly was looking around the foyer, her soldier's mind searching for any object that might be useful in their current predicament.  
Finally, after a fruitless few moments, her eyes fell on one likely idea.

"Are the outside doors open?"

The Commander looked at her questioningly, but went to check the doors anyway. After a slight wrestle with the handle's mechanism, during which Holly's heart sank a little, he managed to wrench the door open.

Holly resisted punching the air. "It looks like our saboteur forgot to lock up on his way out."

"Lucky for u..."

Root was never usually one for leaving sentences hanging unfinished, but something outside City Hall managed to stop his words in their tracks. He wordlessly gestured Holly over.

"Oh, Gods."

**Downtown Haven, 3:40 a.m.**

Mulch was feeling sick. He had a sneaking suspicion it was something he'd eaten, but when you eat almost everything under the world, that doesn't really narrow the search down.

He was lying on a shabby couch that he had found outside a dumpster a few weeks ago. He moaned a little. Less than two years ago he was living in a high-rise, penthouse apartment especially tailored for his unique taste, with over one million dollars' worth of gold stashed in various security boxes, but he lived in seclusion for fear of the LEP finding him. Now, he was a free dwarf, exonerated due to a clerical error, but completely broke. Dwarves were not known for their work ethic, and so he found himself unemployed. Why did being free and being rich have to be mutually exclusive?

A particularly strong wave of nausea rippled through him, and so Mulch stumbled into his sorry excuse for a bathroom to throw up everything he had eaten in the past month.

When he finally reappeared, feeling ten pounds lighter and a lot healthier, he found a most unexpected person sitting on his sofa.

"Hello, Mulch." Said Holly.

**Outside City Hall, five minutes earlier**

They had stepped out of the foyer of City Hall to find that not only was their particular building out of power, but so was the entire city. Even the sun strips above their heads were powering down, their ten minutes of emergency juice running out.

The streets were eerily quiet, most of the fairies having fled home to relative safety. They were walking down one of Haven's busiest streets, at the height of rush hour, with only abandoned pieces of paper that rustled slightly from the air circulators to keep them company.

Root was first to break the silence. "So what's your plan?"

Holly didn't look at him as she walked, feeling the cold now that there was no shared body heat from the other pedestrians. _How can a city so near to the centre of the Earth be so cold? _

"It's not a plan, really. More of a pre-plan."

"Which is...?"

"I have no idea how to sort this, but I know who can: Artemis Fowl."

Her Commander looked almost pitying as he turned to her. "It's good in theory, Holly, but I doubt there are going to be many shuttle runs while the city is in a state like this."

"I know that." Holly said dismissively. "That's why we're going to see Mulch Diggums."

Root groaned. "Of course. What little adventure would be complete without that kleptomaniac of a fairy?"

It was Holly's turn for the pitying smile. "Like it or not, he's the only one who can get us to the surface without a pod."

The Commander sighed. "All right. But if he asks for a medal, it's coming out of your pay cheque."

**Downtown Haven, 3:42 a.m.**

"I won't do it."

"Do what, Mulch? I haven't asked you to do anything yet."

"Whatever it is you want me to do. You have that look in your eye. The look that says '_Oh, Mulch has no magic anyway, let's put him in mortal danger.'_"

Holly sighed. Dwarves. Such drama queens.

"It wouldn't be _mortal danger_. Just a little harmless digging and utilising of your Gods-given talents."

"Holly. You're sweet-talking me. You only do that when it's _really _bad."

"Okay. Here's the deal. You take Julius and me up to the surface, and into Fowl Manor, and you'll get amnesty."

There was a thud and a bout of swearing from the other side of the door.

"I take it that's Julius?"

"How did you guess?" Holly asked, feigning surprise.

"Call it dwarfish Precognition."

"Is that the same precognition that's racked you up seventeen convictions?"

Mulch put his hand over his heart, pretending to be seriously hurt by her words. He was about to say something back, but Root, bored of his position outside the door, opened it and wasted no time in reprimanding the two for their banter.

"Hello to you too, Julius." Mulch said sulkily after the tirade. "You're forgetting I'm not an LEP fairy, you can't talk to a civilian like that."

Root looked as though he were about to boil over with rage. "Civilian? That'll be the day. I'm sure you changed the dates in the police files, and believe me, when I have a spare day or two, I'm going to enjoy hunting down that particular paper trail."

In actuality, it was Foaly who was sure the dates in the police files had been changed, but the threat served its purpose. The dwarf swallowed. He was sure Artemis had done something to get him out of jail - after all, the note he had passed him just before the mind-wipe told him to look at the dates for the search warrant, and how else would the Mud Boy know?

"Why can't you just take a shuttle?"

Holly pointed out of the grime-covered window. "I don't know if you've noticed, Mulch, but the city isn't exactly in full working order at the moment."

The dwarf squinted outside. The entire city was darker than he'd ever seen it. Mulch pulled his best thinking face. If he helped the elves, they might just forget about checking the files on his arrest.

That didn't mean he was just going to help them for free.

"Okay. I'll help. But only if that amnesty is a promise."

Root seemed to think about it for a moment. "I can't do that. The other Council members won't go for it on an obvious flight risk like you." He looked at Holly, who was rubbing her forehead as she watched the situation drop from just about fixable to downright impossible.

The Commander tried a different bribe. "How about a reduced sentence for future crimes?"

Mulch looked unimpressed, and began to head to his fridge. After all, if the power really were down, he wouldn't want all that food to go to waste.

"And a medal. A big one."

The dwarf stopped in his tracks. "All right, Julius. For old times' sake."

**Halfway up Chute E1, twenty-five minutes later**

_All in all, _Holly thought as another current of core wind blew the skirt of her dress up to her waist, _a tea dress isn't the best thing to be caught climbing up a vertical shaft of rock in. _

It had taken them less than ten minutes to reach E1's shuttle port, after Mulch's quick packing of rock polish, four sandwiches 'for the journey', some pitons and a few other assorted items that he promised them would come in useful. The shuttle port, like the rest of the city, was strangely empty - only a few diehard families who had been attempting to get above ground for decades remained in the darkness. All the shuttle port officials had fled straight home.

Naturally - because of the automatic quarantine imposed whenever there was a power cut, just in case it was due to the Mud Men drilling directly above Haven - the blast doors had been sealed.

Mulch pressed his palm flat against the cool metal, before turning to look enquiringly at Commander Root.

"Now, are you sure this power cut is due to someone below ground?"

Root nodded, his training keeping him looking around at any potential threats. If they were ambushed in their current state, with no weapons and no plan of attack...

Holly was more interested in what Mulch had just asked. "Why are you being so cautious?"

"Because," he said, producing a bottle of Dwarf rock polish from his bag with a flourish, "I'm about to cause a lot of damage to City property, and I want the Commander to be well aware when he tells the hearing that I was doing so on his orders."

Holly saw his point. "Carry on."

Mulch unscrewed the top of the bottle. "Now, you'd say these doors were about two metres thick?"

"Two metres, maybe two and a half. E1's quite an active flare chute. Why do you want to know?"

The dwarf didn't answer straight away, pouring a little of the rock polish onto the steel at about head height for a fairy. What happened next was almost instantaneous. Polish met metal with a sharp hiss, and, like a virus, the polish began to eat downwards at the metal, until it stopped at about waist height where the liquefied steel congealed. It left a thirty-centimetre dent in the steel doorframe.

"Six more times." Mulch muttered, reaching inside the dent to pour more rock polish onto the newly exposed steel. Holly was still confused, and it wasn't until she poked him in his gut that he answered.

"I need to regulate the amount of acid I use, so we have enough to burn through to the other side."

The elf whistled. "Who would have thought. Mulch Diggums; scientist."

"I'm full of hidden talents." He grinned as he applied the third coat of rock polish.

"Apparently good hygiene isn't one of them."

"I'm wounded, Major Short. That's the rock polish."

During their bickering, Mulch had managed to melt a small hole, perhaps half a metre in length and width, straight through the steel door. After inspecting his work, he stepped away from the hole courteously.

"Ladies first," he said, looking pointedly at the Commander.

Once they entered the tunnel, they fell silent, strangely at odds to their teasing from earlier. But they knew something horrible had happened.

Root was the first to feel it: magic often has several passive features, like increased hearing or their gift of tongues. It also has a morbid trait - the ability to tell when there's been a death. Or many deaths.

Since the Commander was the most charged of the group, he felt it first. A wave of grief and unrealised dreams that made him double up with the intensity.

As Holly went to help her Commander up, the feeling hit her. It was the same as Root's, but different. Her wave was full of last words and the vain hope of a saviour. She felt sick that it had happened, and even sicker that somebody had caused it.

Mulch, who had lost his magic, was immune to the feeling, but not to the sight. It was mercifully vague: a few broken-up bits of shuttle, blackened by whatever fire had fed on it, and the bodies. They walked past it quickly, Root and Holly leaning against one another for support, Mulch leading them, keeping his eyes trained on the yawning chute mouth ahead of them.

Without a word, Mulch handed the two LEP officers a length of piton each. They looped it under their arms before throwing the wire back to the dwarf, who, in turn, secured it to his belt. As an afterthought, he grabbed a set of wings lying on the rack. He doubted the owner would mind too much now.

Their plan was simple. Suicidally so. Mulch would climb up the side of the chute using his pores, while Holly and Root would try not to smash into the rock face as much as possible. Luckily for them, Mulch's illness meant that he hadn't had much to drink in the past few days, so his pores were all too eager to try and leech out moisture from the rock. The wings were just in case he fell - they wouldn't be enough to hold the three fairies for very long, but they should give him chance to sucker back onto the rock face.

The ascent was quick. It was about four miles to the surface, and the record for a dwarf climber was double that in less than half an hour. Mulch was related to that climber.

Once they reached the surface, they were met with another set of blast doors. Holly turned to Mulch.

"Do you have another bottle of polish?"

The dwarf shook his head. Just before tiny hands reached around his neck to throttle him, he pulled out a small, laminated rectangle.

Holly relaxed. _Of course. _Topside blast doors were always sealed unless the occupant of the pod had an access card - to prevent the Mud Men from getting into Haven just in case they discovered the shuttle port. Neither LEP fairy had one, as they were dressed for completely the wrong occasion, but Mulch had managed to swipe one of Root's during the Fowl Manor siege.

"I was looking for that." Root said, although he didn't sound too angry. They needed to get out of the chute as soon as possible. The elves could still sense the death in the tunnel below, and it was affecting the speed at which they could move. Which could cost more lives.

Mulch swiped the card across the panel next to the doors with an ease that suggested it was not the first time he'd done it.

The doors began to roll upwards, and the trio was under them and out on the other side before they had even gotten halfway.

Mulch turned to the other two. "Now what?"

Root answered, his leadership skills coming to the fore. "We get to Fowl Manor, grab Artemis and have him think up a plan for us."

"That's it? Your plan was to get to Artemis to think up a plan?"

The Commander bristled. "Do you have a problem with that, _civilian_?"

"Me? No. I was just making sure I had all the facts.

"But how am I going to get there? I have no magic, remember. I can't shield."

Holly finally spoke, looking paler than usual. "I don't think my shield's going to hold for long, either, Commander."

Root closed his eyes in thought for a moment. There wouldn't be another full moon for a few weeks, and even if there was, they couldn't spare the time it would take for that detour.

"All right. Diggums, give the Major those wings. Holly, you're going to keep above any cloud cover as much as possible, to try and save your magic. Mulch, you'll do what you do best. Fowl Manor is three klicks west of here, you know the soil."

"What about you, sir?"

"I'm going to run."

Mulch managed to contain his laughter, but it was hard.

"Something funny, Mulch?"

"No, nothing. I was just wondering whether you wanted to complete this plan sometime this century."

Root bared his teeth and made an irritable-sounding noise, but kept his anger in check. He'd need as much energy as possible to make that run.

**Outside Fowl Manor, 4:20 a.m.**

Holly reached the hedgerow first, landing in a steep dive so as not to alert the squadron of police officers gathered a few metres in front of her.

_What've you done now, Artemis?_

She just had time to take off the wings when the Earth began to shake beneath her feet. Mulch breached the surface just as she leapt aside. After a few moments worming his way out of the hole, he noticed Holly.

"Julius not here yet?"

Holly shook her head.

"Good. I want to see the state he's in when he comes."

When Root did arrive, a couple of minutes after Mulch - giving him just enough time to eat two of his sandwiches - the dwarf was disappointed to note the Commander was only slightly out of breath.

"Why, Julius, you're fitter than you look."

Root nodded gracefully.

"Although it's almost impossible not to be."

Holly intervened before Root could begin shouting, and alert the Mud Men to their position.

"I don't think we can just walk upto the gates, Commander."

Root sighed. "I know, I saw. Nearly ran in to one of them."

"So now what? We can't come all this way just to give up."

But the Commander wasn't listening. He was looking at Mulch - who had started on his third sandwich - with a burgeoning smile on his face. The dwarf felt the look.

"Oh, no. I'm not doing that again. He's probably added cement foundations to the wine cellar since our last escapade."

Holly caught up on the act now. "It can't hurt to have a look. Think of your medal."

Mulch swallowed a particularly large section of his sandwich.

"Fine. But this medal better have my face on it, for all the things I'm doing for you."

Root smiled, clapping the dwarf on the shoulder. "We'll call it 'the Mulch'. Now go to it."

And so he did, grumbling right up until he took his first bite of soil.

**Inside Fowl Manor, 4:30 a.m.**

Butler was the first down the hallway, shielding Artemis from possible points of attack. His Sig Sauer was up, and the safety was off, but he doubted whether that would make much of a difference against twenty snipers. Ten, he could probably take, but he personally knew some of the Garda squad - three of them had trained alongside him at Madame Ko's camp. They would almost definitely overpower him.

However, the path to the cellar was clear. Butler kicked the door in, not bothering with stealth. His intent was to get as many bullets out of his gun before they took him. But once he saw what was in the cellar, he almost let out an uncharacteristic bark of laughter. A small creature, with hair that was moving in several different directions, giving the impression the thing was underwater, was waving at him. As it swallowed what was in its mouth, it spoke.

"And here was me thinking we parted friends."

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What's the verdict? I have a question for you all as well. Would you prefer romance in this story to be little sentences here and there, in the background, or more overt?

Reviewers get their character of choice to rescue them from a seemingly impossible situation. :)


	4. Act Two

The Private Wound

**Summary: **Artemis begins to question his intelligence when he's trapped inside his own home, seemingly effortlessly. Will the fairies have to save themselves this time?

**Author's Note:** _Happy Hallowe'en!_**  
**Here marks my first _beta-_ed chapter. A ridiculous amount of thanks to the lovely **ilex-ferox**, without whom I would be drowning in a sea of plot holes and grammatical mistakes. Really, she's fantastic. :)

Oh, and I should probably tell you (although if _'woe is me'_ life tales bore you, skip this bit), I'm coming up to some quite important - although preliminary - exams. Updates might be a little more infrequent/erratic, or they could be every day in a kind of putting-off revision manouvre. Just so you're warned.

**

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Somewhere in Eastern Europe, 6:30 a.m. (+ 2 GMT)**

An odd buzzing noise was coming from somewhere on top of the man's dresser. He rolled over on his bed, tangling loose sheets around his knees.

The buzzing increased, until eventually, swearing fluently in Russian, he wrenched the blankets off his legs, shivering as the dawn chill made the hairs on his shins stand on end.

By the time he reached the source of the noise - a small phone - almost three minutes had passed. Most people would have long since disconnected the call, but this particular caller was, as the man knew from experience, incredibly insistent.

"_Da."_

The voice that answered was oddly rhythmical, with strange inflections that the man found would often lull him into a strange sort of stupor.

"Good morning to you, too, Evgeny. Didn't your mother ever teach you manners?"

The taunt in the voice was lost as the speaker kept the volume of his speech low. In the background, Evgeny could hear the rustle and frantic conversation of a panicked crowd. That wasn't unusual. The caller usually liked to talk in crowded places, but he never normally bothered to keep his voice down.

"My mother never called me at -," here he quickly consulted the digital watch on the dresser, "- six thirty in the morning. What is so important it couldn't wait until the normal time?"

"You need to leave Fowl alone."

There was silence from the Russian man.

"Did you hear me?"

"_Da - _yes, I heard. But you know how long I have been waiting for an opportunity like this. To let that Irish tadpole slip through my fingers now, unharmed..."

"I hardly think he will be unharmed, my friend. You are forgetting how you felt after his intellectual attack, and your attack is much more devastating - you successfully infiltrated his home; his sanctuary. All he did was make a mockery of your theory."

Whether the speaker intended the venom in his remark or not, Evgeny reared away from the phone as though bitten, spluttering half-formed arguments.

"It was a pitiful formula and you know it." The caller snapped, regaining control of the situation. "But now you have revenge: glorious, edifying vengeance which will follow him to the grave."

"I'd rather have put him in it in the first place." The Russian man sulked.

Down the phone, the caller could be heard to sigh. "I know. But while I would have happily served Fowl up on a silver platter, there are several variables I have failed to control."

"What do you mean?"

There was silence from the other end of the line as the caller quickly swept the room with his eyes, searching for possible eavesdroppers. Evidently he found some, for his reply was even more hushed than the previous conversation and the content was very vague.

"Check your CCTV images."

With that, the call terminated and Evgeny was left to listen to the dial tone for a few seconds; mentally shaking himself, he crossed over to the computer which lay dormant at the side of the room. Within two clicks he was sifting through the security footage of Fowl Manor. It took him several minutes to find what his mysterious associate was talking about, and even when he finally found the correct file - footage from the cameras monitoring the atrium and the entrance to the cellar - he had to re-check it several times.

"What on Earth...?"

Later, the man was to find out that 'What _under _the Earth?' would have been a more appropriate question.

**Fowl Manor, Ireland, 4:35 a.m.**

"You've redecorated."

Mulch was pulling his fourth and final sandwich out of his bag as he spoke, as much to break the shocked silence that had descended on the trio as an actual desire to talk.

Butler was the first to recover. Artemis found himself staring at the dwarf with his mouth slightly agape.

"Yes. Madam Fowl thought the room would look better in blue."

"Really? Well, I can see why. _Very _tasteful."

Painfully, Artemis worked his mouth around several words successfully enough to form a sentence. "What are you doing here?"

The dwarf assumed an indignant tone. "Well, if that's how you feel, I'll leave you to it." He turned to open the cellar door. "I'm sure you have those snipers outside the grounds under control, after all..."

Butler put a massive hand on the dwarf's shoulder to stop him from leaving, but gently. He'd seen what Mulch could do to those who annoyed him.

"Do you have any brilliant plans for escape?"

"What, you mean wonder boy doesn't have a plan?"

Artemis hung his head- that action alone making Mulch's jaw drop, displaying the half-eaten bread stuck to his molars.

He and Butler had had an extremely lucky escape. In plays, they normally called events like this a _Deus ex Machina_ - God from a machine. An improbable event to save the protagonists from otherwise certain death. He had always had a low opinion of the literature that employed that particular technique. Now he was alarmingly close to falling to his knees in gratitude for the theatrical device.

What would he and Butler have done without the fairy?

The fairy in question swallowed loudly, a combination of bread and a biting insult, when he saw the two humans' faces.

"You...don't have a plan?" He repeated.

Artemis scoffed by way of hiding his discomfort at Mulch's shocked expressions. "Well, _you_ must, or have you taken to greeting all your friends by causing irreparable structural damage to their family home?"

"It's your own fault if you didn't put concrete foundations under the wine cellar. I'd have thought you would have learnt since last time."

Their petty arguing could have continued for quite some time - Artemis because he wanted to take his mind off the situation at hand, and Mulch because that was what he did best - had a bullet not shattered the mullioned windows of the hall and broken one of the glass orbs surrounding the light fixture. Butler immediately stood in front of the smaller males, shielding them with his bulk and raising his gun, although he knew there was little chance of survival.

A female voice barked from the grounds of the Manor. "You in there. Drop your weapon. We're coming in."

Butler couldn't help it. He dropped his weapon, and, seconds later, the double doors burst open.

**Outside Fowl Manor, ten minutes earlier.**

Root spoke just as Mulch's behind disappeared from view.

"Come on, Major. We've got a lot of work to do."

The Commander strode away from the clearing they had gathered in, Holly trailing behind him warily.

"What are we doing?" She asked as Root took up a position in the hedgerow, directly behind the Garda officers. He was pointing at them and muttering to himself, apparently unaware of Holly's question.

As she took a breath to ask again, he straightened up and spoke.  
"There are around thirty officers I can see, and probably a lot more on the other side of the Manor. We need to immobilize them, and quickly."

"But how? We have no weaponry, and I don't like our odds in hand-to-gun combat." She eyed the menacingly long barrels of the sniper rifles as she said this.

The elder fairy nodded, before turning and directing her gaze to the pompous-looking man with the megaphone. Behind him, there was a large surveillance van, and through the gap of the slightly open door to the vehicle, they could see several computer screens crammed into the rear of the van, showing different viewpoints of the exterior wall of Fowl Manor.

Holly felt a grin spread across her face. "You do have your moments, Commander."

**Five minutes later**

Holly rubbed her eyes wearily. She and Root had decided that they should use her magic to _mesmer_ise the humans, so that they had a larger reserve for healing, should they need it.

It had been a relatively simple task for the two trained LEP officers. Root ambushed those guarding the vehicle. They didn't know what hit them: literally. He had crept up behind them, shielded and carrying a large log. The first three fell without a fight, and the remaining seven in the squad, against protocol, fled away from the scene.

Root surveyed his handiwork with a satisfied grunt as Holly ran into the van. She'd had no trouble finding the comms link connecting it to other vehicles dotted outside the estate, and was sitting in the swivel chair with a headset that was several sizes too big resting on the crown of her head while she stopped to summon every last drop of magic in her body to the forefront of her mind. While the _mesmer_ was a relatively small drain on her magic, on an operation of this scale, she was going to need as much power as possible.

"All units, respond. Respond, all units."

It was at times like this that Holly was grateful human and fairy armed forces had the same modes of communication.

One by one, the units signed in. Holly kept her face carefully hidden in the shadows until she was certain at least one member of every unit was looking towards her camera.

"_Hello, Mud Boys"_

They were enthralled from the first word. Holly would have liked to bet Foaly would have made a comment about how she'd never had so many males hanging onto her every word before, were he listening.

"_Call the other members of your unit over."_

The outside silence was suddenly broken by some sort of parody of a dawn chorus when eight men ordered their team over to watch the tiny camera screen. Holly found herself face-to-face with almost fifty expectant Mud Men, and had to shake herself out of the irrational fear that gripped her stomach.

"_Is that everybody?"_

Fifty heads nodded, eager to please the entrancing voice.

"_Good. Now, I want you all to forget that you have seen me. This is a routine, _ah -," the Major froze briefly, lost for words. A few of the men were blinking rapidly, apparently slipping out of the trance. She pulled herself together quickly. "_- operation. You're going to go to sleep now, and when you wake up, nothing will have changed. Sleep." _

Fifty heads lolled before the end of the last word.

-

Root was standing in the frame of the door, watching the distant horizon with distinct unease. "Time to go. The sun's almost up."

Holly nodded, her eyes fixed on an image on one of the CCTV cameras. It was angled directly through one of the windows in Fowl Manor, and showed the unmistakeable silhouettes of Butler, Artemis and Mulch. She noticed one of

Butler's massive hands was closed around a gun-shaped object. If they just burst into the Manor, despite what Mulch would have told them, the bodyguard would be in such an agitated state that he would probably shoot on sight.

No. Better to give them some warning. She jumped gracefully from the height of the vehicle onto the dew-damp grass, barely breaking the movement to jog over to the now unconscious man with the megaphone. After a few moment's experiment, she found the on/off switch. She nodded to Root, who had relieved a Mud Man of his weapon, and proceeded to fire it straight through one of the windows of the Manor, hitting his target of the light fitting in the middle of the hall.

"Still got it." He grunted.

His Major wasted no seconds on congratulations, but switched the megaphone on.

"You in there. Drop your weapon. We're coming in."

She then opened the throttle of her wings, landing in front of the infamous doors of Fowl Manor. She never could resist a grand entrance, and so she kicked the door out of its frame, shaking dust from the ceiling. Three confused faces confronted her.

"Honey, I'm home."

**Haven City Hall, 4:35 a.m.**

Trouble kneaded his eyes with his palms. It had been almost an hour since the lights had flickered off in the hall, and there was nothing that suggested they would switch back on any time soon.

That said, the hall was not in total darkness. Foaly had managed to adapt some of the various pieces of technology the party guests had, and produced a sickly orange glow throughout the hall, making the occupants look like some sort of nightmarish version of a period drama.

The guests had calmed down somewhat since their initial outburst, after Trouble had yelled himself hoarse over the terrified cries from the guests. Most were now sitting on the chairs that surrounded the open space, created for the traditional dance that was supposed to have taken place. They seemed confident that the LEP operatives in the room would have them out of there within minutes. What they didn't know was that with the odd disappearance of both the erstwhile Commander and the pretty Major, the bulked-up elf that was seated on the bar was the only officer in the room worth his salt. And that, Trouble noted with a twinge of hysteria he pretended wasn't there, put him in charge of over two hundred lives.

He had already checked the doors. All of them: twice in fact. They were locked from the inside, which didn't bode well. For the last thirty minutes, he had been watching the crowd, looking for a sign of nervousness, or any other signals that would indicate all was not what it seemed.

But, although apparently staring intently at Chairman Cahartez's wife he wasn't actually looking at her at all, he pushed himself off the bar front and walked over to the Western door, where Foaly was attempting to activate the locking mechanism, aided by a shadow of a pixie.

"Any luck?"

Foaly didn't look up from his position at eye level with the lock. The budding Commander's voice was tense and strained, and the centaur didn't have time to deal with an elf on the verge of a breakdown.

"No. You may have noticed that since the door is still closed, I haven't made much progress."

The pixie next to him chuckled slightly. It was an unnerving sound, like the last breath of a fairy long since dead. Trouble felt the hairs on the back of his neck start to rise.

"Who're you?"

"Doctor Rhodius Bentwood, at your service." He extended a skeletal hand. The Major shook it warily.

"I'm afraid your technological genius is rather stuck, isn't he?"

This observation brought with it a fresh bout of the eerie laughter. Trouble decided he didn't like the pixie, and the expression on Foaly's face when he heard the comment told the elf that the centaur wasn't impressed either.

"Well, I'm going to go and talk to the guests a little more. See if they're hiding anything."

The elder Kelp avoided Foaly's eyes as he walked away, well aware that the centaur would rather be denied his hoof moisturiser than spend more time alone with the pixie.

Once Trouble was safely ensconced on the other side of the room, he kept one eye on the pixie as he began to survey the room again. There was something nagging at the back of his mind. Though the nag had the same voice as his younger brother, it was almost never wrong about that sort of thing.

**E1 (Tara) Topside Departure Lounge, 4:50 a.m.**

Artemis was sitting on the edge of a blue plush seat in the middle of a busy shuttle port which was completely empty.

The last fifteen minutes had been a blur to the boy. After Holly had made her grand entrance, Butler had taken hold of his charge by the forearm and barrelled him into the Bentley. Their assortment of fairy companions had fallen in after him - Holly and Root in some sort of formalwear - and they had driven at breakneck speed towards E1, with both LEP officers shouting directions from the back of the car. Mulch was watching Artemis with a curious expression on his face, whilst simultaneously raiding the mini fridge in the car.

Once they reached the nondescript field in the middle of the Irish farming belt, Butler turned off the engine and shepherded everybody out of the car. The fairies led the way to the concealed entrance, and the car was abandoned.

Artemis checked the surrounding countryside before ducking inside the entrance. In times of emergency it wouldn't hurt to know where the fairy port was located.

He had expected screams to greet his appearance - he had wondered why the fairies were taking two of the most notorious humans under the world to their main shuttle port - but the empty, deserted nature of the lounge seemed to answer his questions.

"What's going on?"

Root, who was nearest to the boy, turned to answer, a cup of what looked like oil in one hand.

"Something big. Completely covert. The entire city is out of power, the majority of the LEP is locked in City Hall sitting on their hands, and we had to use Diggums and his arsenal of underhand tricks to get up here to ask for your help."

Butler had come to listen to the explanation, sitting cross-legged on the floor as he couldn't fit into any of the chairs.

"Could it be an attempted coup?"

"We didn't notice any hostile action on the streets. They were completely deserted."

"A distraction? To break someone out of prison?"

There was silence as every member of the group contemplated that prospect. They were all thinking of the same 'someone'.

"No." Holly said finally. "Opal's in the Deeps. She was transferred there after her escape attempt from Haven Penitentiary."

The atmosphere in the room lightened considerably. Mulch, with a spread of pilfered food in front of him, settled into the chair opposite Artemis.

"What was going on at your Manor, anyway? Friends of yours?" He asked, turning to Butler.

The manservant shook his head, turning to his young master. Telling the fairies would almost certainly rid him of his problem, but the chances were the Council would insist on mind-wiping him again, since another Mud Man had found out about the subterranean civilisation at his hand.

"Artemis?"

Every face was turned towards him now. He swallowed. Time to bite the bullet. "All right. But you're not going to like it..."

And so he explained the situation as well as he could. He told them about the almost-successful kidnapping attempt, the mysterious radio contact and his disturbing knowledge of the fairies, and finally explained what he could only describe as a siege. By the time he finished the story, Root was shaking with rage.

"D'Arvit." Breathed Holly. "How did he get into your hard-drive? Foaly had a difficult time just feeding a loop through your systems, and even then he was on-site!"

Artemis hung his head. The elf was avoiding the issue that there was another megalomaniac - probably a genius - out there with knowledge of the fairies. Root was not so tactful.

"You mean that thanks to you, we have an unnamed, unknown threat with the same fairy knowledge as you running about?"

"In a nutshell, yes."

"Why was he holding you hostage, anyway?"

The boy rubbed his nose with a manicured forefinger. "I'm not sure. I could assume it was a simple power play. Cementing his superiority, or some such."

Mulch swallowed a particularly large mouthful of what looked like chicken. "Does this seem a bit too fluky to anybody else? Haven loses power and the entire LEP is locked in a room on the same night that Artemis is besieged by some clichéd bad guy on a power trip?"

Root nodded, despite the idea having been proposed by Mulch Diggums. "It _is_ strangely coincidental, but how can somebody know enough about Haven's power supply to disable that, and besiege Fowl Manor? You wouldn't be able to divert the power, would you?" He turned to Artemis.

"No...I see your point, but you can't suggest this man knows more about fairy technology than me? He knows what he knows about fairies from the files on my computer."

"Well, that leaves one other possibility." Holly looked grim. "Humans and fairies are working together in some sort of pincer movement. But _why_?"

The quintet dropped their eyes from each other's faces. Humans and fairies had worked against them before, of course, but the humans had never consciously known about the existence of the People. Now they had an intelligent and perceptive human managing to beat their resident genius, and no fairy technology to help them out of it.

_Oh, yes. It's turning out to be a fun evening._

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OK, so what're we thinking about this chapter, people? A bit more plot development, some clues and red herring for luck. Although who knows? My use of the words 'red herring' could be a red herring...;)

Reviewers get a deducing session with their favourite character! I can't guarantee that Artemis won't just talk Quantum Physics with you, though.


	5. Interlude I

The Private Wound

**Summary: **Artemis begins to question his intelligence when a mysterious man manages to trap him in his own home, seemingly effortlessly. Will the fairies have to save themselves this time?

**Author's Note: **Number of reasons for the lateness of this chapter: two. Revision - and by that I mean the three pages of very big writing I made on the wide plain of chemistry - and a virus on my PC (which isn't fixed, for the one person that has a passing interest. I'm on a different computer at the minute which seems to have made me blind to CAPITALS).  
Anyway. It's here now. Let's hope it lives up to expectations. Big props to **ilex-ferox **for her mad beta-ing skillz:)

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**Somewhere in Eastern Europe, 6:50 a.m. (+2 GMT)**

Evgeny was pacing.

He hadn't slept since the call, being glued to the computer link that was feeding the images from Fowl Manor and the incredible - impossible - rescue directly to him. There should have been no way that Fowl had managed to outsmart him and get the fairy brigade up to help him. But somehow the pretty female of the group - he guessed this was the Holly of Artemis's diaries - had managed to mesmerise the entire squadron of police outside the Manor, and then proceeded straight through the front doors of the building. Three minutes later the entire group jogged out to the Bentley in the driveway and disappeared from sight.

He had raged silently for a few minutes, kicking the partition wall of his apartment which resulted in an answering pounding from his neighbours.

After this outpouring of anger, he became quickly, oddly calm once again: the eye of the storm. The small black radio receiver sat next to his phone. His patron wouldn't be any too happy if he disobeyed the 'order' he had been given; but, he reminded himself, his patron was rather tied up at the moment. One quick radio conversation to allow the tracker on the back of the partner device - the same device used by the drunken cretin on the preceding infiltration of Fowl Manor - to locate Fowl, and then it would be a simple matter to convince the Irish police to shoot the boy dead on sight. He had always been good with words.

He clicked the switch three times to initiate the standard static squawk that would alert Fowl. He hoped the boy hadn't left the receiver behind in all the fuss.

A few seconds later, a tinny, pubescent voice snapped, "what now?"

Evgeny smiled. Despite the insolence in the boy's tone, there was no denying the undercurrent of fear: or whatever the obnoxious Irish boy's equivalent to fear was.

"Dear, dear, dear, Arty boy. I make it a point to address my contacts with courtesy at all times."

"And I make it a point never to send a crack team of snipers to my _contact's _home. Now, if we're done trading philosophies, what do you want?"

The Russian man's smile widened. "Temper, temper. I just wanted to let you know I was very impressed with your escape. I didn't even notice your call for help. It seems you're one to watch."

The Irish boy was silent.

"What? No pithy comeback? No ominous threats? Not even a reference to your shaven ape?"

In the background, Evgeny heard the unmistakeable cracking of knuckles, but the voice he heard was still Fowl's.

"What is it you want? Money?"

The Russian's laughter was like small bursts of machine-gun fire. "Oh, that's not what I want at _all_. I want to make you beg Artemis Fowl. Beg me for forgiveness and for your life."

"Forgiveness? Why would I seek your forgiveness?"

_Uh oh. _Standard evil-genius mistake. Revealing the crux of the plot to the very person who could bring about its downfall. He slapped his forehead.

"I want you to know how it feels to be humiliated. Think of all the people you have disgraced in your short life. I want you to apologise for ruining their lives."

"So you're a righteous man. You want me to repent my mistakes?"

Evgeny smiled. "Exactly. You see Fowl, you're quite a decent boy when you don't have your hidden ace."

There was a laugh on the other end of the line. The Russian genius looked at the radio, confused.

"Oh, I wouldn't say I'm decent. How is your trace going, by the way?"

He regained his composure quickly. It was understandable - expected even, that Fowl knew equipping devices with tracers had become standard procedure for most military operations . All it meant was that he lost one advantage he'd never expected to keep for long. Fowl was running scared. That was the main thing.

"Very clever. You've disabled it, no doubt?"

"I found it evened the odds a little."

"Well, don't expect to stay hidden for too long, Arty. Your fairy friends' technology is no great defence."

And with that, he disconnected the call.

**E1 Shuttle Port, Ireland, 4:50 a.m.**

"Did you get it?"

Holly pulled an annoyed face. "Calm down, Artemis. These things take time."

Three seconds later, her purple communicator began emitting soft _bleep_-ing noises. She smiled. A standard reverse-trace. Sometimes Foaly's lectures were worth listening to.  
"There, a perfect match. Mr. Tarasov needs to be more careful about how much of an electronic signature all his computers leave."

"Tarasov?" Butler sat up. He recognised the name.

"Evgeny Tarasov, twenty. Lives in a run-down apartment in the Russian town of Pskov."

Artemis turned to Butler. "I recognise the name...wasn't he that ridiculous child 'prodigy' who insisted that Intelligent Design disproved Darwin's theory of Evolution?"

Butler nodded. "You trashed his paper at an evolutionary conference. I remember having to shield you from creationist supporters for the rest of the day. Something along the lines of 'while evolution may not have applied to Tarasov, we _Homo sapiens_ are too intelligent for Intelligent Design.'"

"Subtle." Mulch said, without looking up from his cornucopia of food.

"I know," Artemis conceded, "but it got the point across. I think he disappeared because OF the embarrassment it caused. It was a rather egregious error."

"So this is revenge, is it?" Root asked, attempting to slot back into the conversation. "Why do the People have to suffer?"

"I don't know." The boy said, pressing his fingers into his eyes until a flash of bright light cut through the mire of his mind. He had to retrace this Evgeny's steps.

Butler noted the posture of his young charge. He was thinking hard. Without changing his position, Artemis began to speak.

"First, a man who has a score to settle contacts us. He demonstrates an incredible knowledge of the fairy people, and we assume he got that information when he hacked into the Fowl Manor server. But what would give him that idea in the first place? Why hack into my personal files when tampering with the security feed would have served the same ultimate purpose?"

Holly answered. "Possibly to unnerve you further? Maybe he was just looking for some personal information to scare you with and got lucky?"

"No...That doesn't fit. If it were him, alone, he would just have wanted to humiliate me mentally. There's no intelligent tactical advantage to be gained from learning my personal opinion of, say, Homer's _Odyssey._"

Holly rubbed her forehead. "He could have been looking for information on how your family has miraculously regained its billionaire status. To try and put you behind bars for embezzlement."

"There's no point to that. Hacking a personal computer is a crime, and any evidence he gained would be inadmissible in court."

"So somebody else directed him to do it?" Root asked.  
_  
_"That's what I think. A subterranean somebody."

Mulch burped. "These brilliant deductions are all well and good, but what do we do now we've figured it out?"

Holly raised an eyebrow. "_We?" _  
_  
_"You know what I mean. We're stuck in a deserted shuttle port with a basic supply of LEP equipment and no link to Foaly or anybody else in the underground. I don't think all five of us are going to be able to ride the one set of wings we have."

Despite the group's unwillingness to admit it, the dwarf had a point. They were the only five beings in or under the world who knew about the human/fairy conspiracy, and that didn't look as if that situation would be changing any time soon.

"Major Short? Major Short? Please, if you can hear this, pick up!"

Holly flinched, startled. Nobody in the room had spoken after Mulch's remark The voice had come from her communicator. Root was gesturing at her wildly. She picked up.

"This is Major Short, receiving you loud and clear."

"Thank Frond."

The Major was disappointed to note that while it was one of the Kelps talking to her, it wasn't Trouble.

Still, a fairy's a fairy.

"Corporal Kelp. What's going on below ground?"

"I don't know, Holly. All the lights in the Plaza went off - I tripped over one of Foaly's recyclers. He's a menace -,"

"Grub!"

"Sorry. We've just managed to get the backup generators working. The city's on basic power, but you're the first LEP officer we've managed to contact. None of the other lines are working."

Holly sighed. Of course. Every other LEP officer was at City Hall, alongside the electromagnetic pulse. There was no chance of them getting a line to them. "I know, Grub. We've tried, too."

"Who else is with you?" Grub's voice was hopeful. He was obviously worried about his brother.

"Commander Root. I'm sure Trouble's all right, though." She added as what she thought was a reassuring afterthought.

"I hope so. What's going on, Holly? How come I can contact you?"

Root, tired of being ignored by both his officers, snatched the small device.

"Corporal Kelp, this is no time for idle chitchat! We have a serious breach of secrecy laws. Level One. We're betting somebody in City Hall is responsible but we have no idea why. You need to make getting in there your top priority!"

Holly could hear the fear in Grub's voice.

"Level One? And Trouble's in there?"

"CORPORAL! The sooner you get City Hall open, the less danger he'll be in!"

"Yessir. Sorry sir. Over and out."

And with that, the call disconnected, Grub Kelp was undoubtedly eager to avoid prolonged contact with the cantankerous Commander.

"Apparently we're not entirely alone." Artemis had been watching the exchange between the fairies. "Did he say the city's basic power supply had been restored?"

Holly looked at the boy. "Why? Got any cunning plans?"

Artemis smiled, looking towards the yawning chute mouth. "Just one."

**Haven City Hall, 4:50 a.m.**

There was something most definitely the matter with Rhodius Bentwood.

Trouble was certain of it now. He had been watching the pixie for the last twenty minutes, and he was the only occupant of the room who actually seemed pleased with the turn of events.  
Now he had the task of containing the diminutive threat without provoking the crowd. A panicked stampede in the Hall would be the equivalent of a bull troll in a china shop.

He flexed his fingers, training taking over. _When you're in an unsecured location with limited to no intel., take stock. What have you got and what do you know for sure?_  
_  
_Trouble smiled at the memory. His Academy days. He had almost forgotten. It was so much easier when your enemy was virtual.

The smile faded as he scanned the room. Seemingly innocent devices that would make ingenious instruments for escape were thin on the ground. A few corporals - Lili Frond and her ilk - Foaly, and communication technology that had somehow been rendered useless. A dejected grimace erased the last vestiges of the smile as he realised that if this was what he had, he knew even less. Somebody inside the room (he thought he knew who) was sabotaging them. But with a group of LEP officers who were more used to handling hair-curling barrels than the barrel of a gun, he could do very little to stop him.

Foaly was his best bet, then. The centaur had given up on the doors, and was now debating whether he could feasibly design anything that could pierce the glass dome above their heads and safely attach some form of rope onto something solid on the roof. As he was holding a hairpin and a length of flossing wire, it didn't look promising.

Sure enough, as the elf made his way over, the centaur threw down the items and crossed his arms; the picture of a sulky five-year-old.

"I can't work under these conditions!"

Trouble raised a sympathetic eyebrow as Foaly began to rant about the 'equipment' he had to work with.

"Floss? Two hundred and fifty people and the best they can come up with is floss? Not just that but _used_ floss. I give up."

"Foaly -,"

"I know I'm resigned to the role of under-appreciated genius, but at least I usually have tools. Now I get Skylar Peat's hairpins and a moth-eaten cummerbund."

"People pay good money to get something of Peat's." Trouble said, eager to calm the centaur so he could be of some use.

After a theatrical sigh, Foaly finally became aware of the soon-to-be Commander. "What do you want?"

"Your old professor, Bentwood, do you know anything about him?"

"Not much. A bit of a crackpot nowadays. Why?"

"I think he could be the cause of the blackout."

The techie's eyes widened as they flickered over to where the faded pixie was conversing with a nondescript member of the Council. The elf was having to bend almost in half to hear Bentwood's voice, and even then he was frowning in what Trouble took to be concentration. "Him? Really? He looks like one unexpected swear toad in his path would finish him off."

"Be that as it may, there's something I don't like about him. Do you have any information at all?"

Foaly scratched his head. "Well...he did vote for Opal Koboi in the Science prize at college...it was a bit of a surprise, really, since he'd been interested in the development of my iris-cam since its inception."

Trouble pinched the bridge of his nose. "Anything that hasn't dented your ego?"

"Anything that isn't to do with my ego isn't important," Foaly retorted, "but I take your point. There's nothing I can think of that would make him pull something like this. I'm not even entirely sure he would know how, he's been out of the industry for so long."

The elf made a noise between a sigh and a groan. "Thanks. That helps."

_Back to the drawing board. _

**E1 Shuttle Port, Ireland, 5:10 a.m**. 

Butler massaged his chest while they were waiting. It had begun to ache more than usual in the aftermath of the adrenaline-fuelled retreat from Fowl Manor.

Artemis was standing by the computer monitors showing the interior of the chute. He had been in the same position since Holly had disappeared into the abyss. To anybody else, the boy genius was watching the feed with detachment, bordering on downright apathy. But Butler, who noticed the white knuckles gripping onto the edge of the blue plush seat, and the slight tensing of the jaw, realised his charge must have been in a state close to whatever his version of panic was. If his plan failed - if there wasn't a shuttle in the Havenside port, they would have no way of reaching Russia in time to regain control of the wildly spiralling situation, and Butler knew if that was the case, a mind-wipe for himself and his charge would be a blessing.

Root stood near Artemis, watching the screens with a more tangible tension. One of his best officers, one of his best friends...could he call Holly a friend? had flown down the chute on the pair of wings Mulch had stolen, complaining all the while that she wasn't suitably dressed. While he wasn't worried about a possible flare - Tara was never a dangerous activity zone and, according to the readout from the terminal computers, wasn't due another flare for at least three months - he _was _worried about the condition of the wings. They were not standard LEP models, and diving put a lot of strain on the rigging. If she couldn't brake...

And then, in the midst of his worrying, a silver craft, alien-looking in design, appeared on the monitor. Root almost whooped, momentarily forgetting about his ulcer and his role in the group as the touchy by-the-book fairy.

Holly's voice crackled over the speakers. "Somebody order a shuttle?"

**Somewhere in Eastern Europe, 8:30 a.m. (+2 GMT)**

Sparks flew past the windscreen, and Root turned just in time to see a large portion of the shuttle's hull scrape away from the craft like the lid of a tin can.

"Major? If you don't mind, I'd like to get out of this alive."

Holly nodded, but kept her eyes on the computer screens that displayed the layout of the chute in digital, infrared and even images from a newly-designed device that had taken a neat chunk out of Foaly's annual budget.

The device was a scanner that took a reading of the immediate surroundings and translated the gas compositions into shapes. It was inspired by the same scan that Holly and Artemis ran six months ago when searching for Opal Koboi's stealth shuttle, but improved and reprogrammed so that it could deliver a three-dimensional rendering of the airspace as it truly was without the user having to perform manual eliminations. It would also bring up a shielded fairy without having to stop the footage. Police Plaza had had to endure weeks of the centaur's gloating after that creation, it was only after Commander Root had reminded him that the only reason he had needed to invent it in the first place was because Koboi fooled his DNA sensors that he stopped bragging - very quickly.

Butler, screwed into one corner like an old sock, was watching his charge. Artemis was checking the chute's destination on one of the spare computer screens. Looking up the location listed by Eduard Novikov in his email - the ransom demand for the return of some less than honest files involving Artemis Fowl Senior's business transactions that Butler and his charge had been discussing so long ago in the kitchen of Fowl Manor - and its relative position to Pskov. Even in the wake of the night's unnerving events, Butler had no doubt his young master would be formulating a plan against the original threat.

It was his job to look after his principal. To know what he was thinking. However, nowadays he found himself watching his charge protectively. Like a father would a son.

---

"_You've bonded." _

Madam Ko said this softly, without inflection. But Butler hung his head, which coupled with his position, kneeling on the floor, made it look as if he was awaiting execution. Never bond with the Principal. Those bonds hinder you and you stumble more often.

"Yes."

"Does he know your name?"

A mental image swam before him . It was tinged with blue, as though covered in frost. Splashes of red set a contrast. He was lying on a cake trolley with tiramisu staining his jacket. Artemis was gripping the metal trolley, fighting back tears. 

"Goodbye Artemis." _A hand as cold and pale as death groped for warmth_. "My friend."  
_  
_"Goodbye, Butler."

The elder man smiled at the title. It was silly, really. His closest friend didn't even know his first name. Formality shouldn't matter when you were bleeding all over dessert. 

"Artemis. Call me - Domovoi."

"He knows." Madam Ko had taken the silence as an affirmative. Butler said nothing, gripping his hands behind his back even tighter. 

"_Then you are of no use to him." _

The Eurasian thought of arguing. He had saved Artemis countless times over the years; noticed things other bodyguards would overlook, resulting in a fatal mistake. But then he remembered all the times he had almost failed in his duties. Torn between two people that were like children to him. Leaving Artemis to be almost eaten alive by creatures his rational mind told him could not exist. He put too much of himself into Artemis Fowl's life, out of a selfish desire to be equal - bonded. All that left his principal with were injuries and heartache when one lucky marksman finally found Butler's heart, miles away from any cooling chambers.  
  
"_You should not be human to your principal. You are a shield. A weapon. A walking security assessor. Not a person. Not a brother looking after his younger sibling. Not a friend. Your aim is to enable your principal to walk away from your eventual death with little more than a fleeting moment of regret." _

Butler remembered his charge's tearstained face, moments before his would-be demise, and the lengths Artemis went to in order to bring him back from the dead. The first lesson in any line of bodyguarding: never allow yourself to be seen as human.  
And he had failed. 

---

"Butler?"

Artemis's voice broke through his reverie. The boy was watching his bodyguard with something approaching concern in his features.

"Yes, Artemis?" He tried to inject as impassive a tone into his voice as he could manage.

"You look rather pale. And you were muttering to yourself."

He was spared the effort of creating a lie to appease his charge when Holly spoke. "We're nearing the tunnel chute mouth now. E91 - the Estonian border."

"That means we're still over twenty kilometres away from Pskov, and it's already daybreak. _And_ Holly doesn't have enough magic left to shield. I don't know how you think we're going to pull this off."

Root growled, "Are you just going to point out problems? Shouldn't your towering intellect be solving them for us?"

Butler stood, or more accurately crouched, in the limited space effectively ending the conversation. "Master Artemis was just suggesting possible flaws in the plan."

The group, including Mulch, who had spent most of the breakneck voyage in the bathroom, stared at the Eurasian. He hadn't spoken quite so formally to them for almost three years.

A light on the dashboard began to blip softly, and the docking nodes revolved together. They had landed.

Butler was the first out of the door in the wake of the silence that had descended on the cabin. "You four stay here. I know somebody who knows somebody."

With that he left the shuttle port, disappearing into the Estonian morning and leaving four of his closest friends in complete darkness.

* * *

Worth the wait? I know it was only like a week, but when you're cut off from the internet you suddenly realise how much slower your day goes without the ability to _google_ useless information.

Reviewers get their very own grumpy bodyguard to cheer up. I hear fuzzy things make him happy. :)


	6. Act Three

The Private Wound

**Summary: **Artemis begins to question his intelligence when a mysterious man manages to trap him in his own home, seemingly effortlessly. Will the fairies have to save themselves this time?

**Author's Note: **Well, Chapter six is finally here, after a _very _long delay! I apologise profusely for that - it seems the Christmas holidays put paid to my work ethic, as well as my wallet and my waistline (yes, I did have to make them all begin with 'w')! Anyway, thank you very much if you're a returning reader, it makes me smile to know you're still interested in this story. If you're new to the game however, you're just as welcome. :)

And finally, a thousand compliments to **ilex-ferox**, not only my ever patient Beta, but also the unknowing boot up my backside. She's the one that makes this story more than a mess of OOC-ness and lines that I find funny.

**

* * *

Haven City Hall, 6:10 a.m.**

"Fire!"

The techies rolled their eyes as one. _Fire. _As if it was as simple as pulling a trigger and crossing your fingers. They had to manipulate the controls of the laser carefully to avoid frying their own brains. It took calculations Corporal Grub Kelp could never even hope comprehend.

Out loud, however, they answered with a monotonous, "Yessir."

Dials were twisted, switches flicked and the sight calibrated. They were aiming far above the heads of the guests on the other side of the steel doors, in order to cut a rectangular hole in the door big enough for an average-sized fairy. After a couple of minutes of machine checks - during which Corporal Kelp barked orders, enjoying the power he had - the techie, who was commonly known as Foaly's _Igor, _pushed the Big Red Button.

A concentrated stream of orange light burst from the nozzle, sinking into the metal with an audible _pssh.  
_  
After a few tense moments - Foaly had been upgrading the City Hall security within the past month and if he'd thought to install Dwarf-laser proof doors, their efforts (which were draining the trickle of power Haven was operating on) would be futile - a gas began to form around the point of impact. Carbon Dioxide. The laser could be set to specific temperatures, so as to melt additional compounds - in this case, the oxide that had been smelted with the metal - and leave the pure metal alone. It saved time back in the Dwarf mines. The techies breathed out in collective relief. Grub Kelp looked nonplussed.

With single-minded purpose, they moved the laser point slightly to the right. Contrary to the lasers in films, cutting metal of this size could not be done in a minute flat. It was a long, laborious process, and even after they had cut a _Line-Art _rectangle of pure iron, a sizeable amount of force would have to go into popping the rectangle out of its place in the door.

They had drawn a line perhaps thirty centimetres in length when a voice shouted, "Stop!"

Immediately, several hands slapped the red button, creating a fleshy pile-up. When they looked in the direction of the most senior LEP officer present, they found him facing an abnormally thin gnome. Neither looked very happy.

"What's going on here, Corporal?"

"I managed to contact the Commander and Major Short. They said we needed to get into the ballroom," He paused, letting the silence stretch just long enough to become awkward before adding the final word. "Sir."

Ark Sool pushed all the air from his lungs out of his mouth in a heavy _huff._ He resented the fact that it was he who was left to protect Haven, with just the whiny brother of a hotshot Retrieval elf for company. Not only that, but he hated the fact that even the notoriously cowardly Grub Kelp felt so unthreatened by him that he would issue orders without his acting-superior's consent.

"How did you manage to get a line into the room?"

"I don't know. In fact, I'm not even entirely sure they were in the room."

"What?"

"They...well, Holly - Major Short, sorry - said that they had been trying to contact those in the hall too. It wouldn't make sense for them to try and contact people they could shout to, does it?"  
Sool ground his teeth. The Kelp family was never much use to him. The elder one, with the ridiculous name, had almost as Internal Affairs' inquiries to his name as the cocky female Major, and this stinkworm of a brother was just as bad.

"So you don't know where they are?"

"No, sir."

Sool bit back a growl. "And they left it to you to get into the hall, unaided?"

Corporal Kelp nodded. "Well, it sounded like they had something important to -,"

"Sounded like? As Commander of the LEP, Root should be down here on his fat backside trying to figure out what's going on! I bet he's somewhere with his merry band of kidnappers and _that dwarf_, trying to squeeze in one last adventure before he has to force himself into a council seat." Grub could hear the resentment in Sool's voice as he said this; it was common knowledge in Police Plaza that Ark Sool was almost as obsessed with getting a seat on the Council as Briar Cudgeon.

"Of course, sir." Grub said, eager to stem the tirade before Sool's heart gave out and he had to fill in a witness statement. "But since most of the LEP and Foaly are in that room, we don't have any real chance of getting back to normal until that room is open."

Sool bristled. "Well, _corporal, _using a laser won't help you. You'll kill half the people in that room trying to cut through this door. I won't allow it, and anyone that attempts it will be held on charges of an attempted coup."

The techies' jaws fell open as one, incredulity flashing across their faces. Warily, the chief technician stepped forward, ready to reason with the gnome, believing his order was based simply on inaccurate scientific data.

But the acting commander was gone before he could get past the word 'sir'. The techies and the available LEP officer still free underground were left to stare at each other, until Grub gave the order.

"You heard him. Dismantle the laser." _Perhaps_, he thought, _there's some paperwork we can save Haven with._

Pechory, Estonia, 8:30 a.m. ( 2 GMT) 

The cold wind seemed to take advantage of Butler's lack of hair and slapped into his forehead like an Arctic blizzard. The north in spring: he had forgotten.

There were a few Estonians on the streets, but Pechory was a small town on the Russo-Estonian border and so most of the population were farmers, with a few backpacking tourists using the train station every week as a makeshift hostel. Butler scanned the high street, looking for all the world like the epitome of a collected businessman. Albeit a businessman with around five guns secreted on his person. Most only carried two.

Inside, his emotions were sparring with his training. His principal was almost kidnapped - or worse - because he had relied too much upon Master Artemis's 'foolproof' security system. Never listen to the Principal. View them as children to be patronised and protected.

What was worse was that his charge _was _a child. For all his brainpower Artemis still had the physique of a fourteen-year-old boy, complete with gangly limbs and a burgeoning Adam's apple.

Butler's brow wrinkled slightly as he began to walk down the left-hand side of the main street. _One more adventure,_ he thought, _save the fairies and have them help retrieve the files about Artemis Fowl Senior from the mysterious Eduard Novikov. _

And then he and Artemis would need to have a serious talk.  
**  
E91, Estonian Border, 15 minutes later.  
**  
There was silence in the shuttle port. Mulch had taken the best option of avoiding the topic of Butler: having finally eaten his fill, he had fallen asleep on the chairs in the departure lounge.

Holly, Artemis and Commander Root, however, were having to sit in the silence facing one another, all wanting to continue on their reckless mission - in fact feeling slightly put out that they had suddenly come to such an abrupt halt after the last few hours - and simultaneously wanting to discuss the sudden change in personality of the resident bodyguard. However, none of the trio wanted to be the one to broach the topic, and so there was no noise other than the background hum of the shuttle as it ran self-diagnostics.

Eventually, Holly stood up, eager to escape the oppressive silence of the cabin. She checked out the supplies in the LEP locker, that came as standard with every shuttle. looking for a jumpsuit to replace her now rather dishevelled tea dress. She'd never be able to return it now.

Finding nothing new to wear - but an old issue LEP helmet that she thought might hold a useful advantage over Evgeny Tarasov - she sat down again with a loud '_umpfh'_, sending little clouds of dust from her dress spiralling around the cabin.

"I never asked," Artemis said, his voice cracked from the earlier silence. He swallowed and watched Holly place the helmet onto the empty seat on her right before continuing. "Not that I wouldn't appreciate you dressing up just to come and see me, but I suspect there is another reason. Why are you both in formalwear?"

Root laughed, a hollow sound that was more like a cough. "Tonight was going to be my induction ceremony. Six-hundred and fifteen years old. I'd be the youngest ever member of the council."

The boy blinked for a moment, forcing his brain to admit that six-hundred and fifteen could be young in some species. "So what happened?"

"City hall - the hall where they were holding the ceremony - went into lockdown mode. Steel doors four feet thick blocking every entrance. All the guests inside the room when the doors went down were sealed inside. Only Major Short and myself were outside."

Artemis let out a heavy breath. "So the rest of the LEP..."

"Is inside that room. Aside from Corporal Kelp and an obnoxious gnome from Internal Affairs we're the only LEP officers available to find the cause of the lockdown."

"And Foaly?"

"He's locked inside the room as well." Holly said, rubbing her eyes. "There's no way of contacting him, either. Someone's installed an electromagnetic pulse in one of the corridors, which just happens to knock out all communications attempting to connect to the hall."

"Convenient."

"We thought so. This is a smooth operation, Artemis. No goblins this time."

The human was silent for a moment. "_The greatest delight is to mark one's enemy, prepare everything, avenge oneself thoroughly, and then go to sleep_."

"What?" Holly looked puzzled.

"Joseph Stalin said that to Lev Kamenev."

"Stalin?" Root asked. "Well built? Dark hair?" Artemis nodded. "I remember him. A hard man to trace."

Silence followed this statement until, uneasily, Holly cleared her throat. "So what does that quote have to do with our predicament?"

Artemis put his elbows on his knees and placed the tips of his fingers together before responding.

"Revenge is one of the most powerful driving forces of the human psyche. We already know that Tarasov has attacked me because I humiliated him on the intellectual stage. What if there's a similar motive behind the attack on Haven?"

The two fairies had leaned towards the boy as he spoke, similar expressions of wary understanding on their faces. "But why shut down the whole of Haven to exact revenge on one fairy?" Root asked.

"Who said it was just one fairy they wanted to get even with? We know there's at least one pixie who would want to get revenge on both myself and several fairies."

"You're not seriously thinking about Opal?" Holly asked, stifling a yawn. "Artemis, she attempted a breakout about a month ago. We sent her to -,"

"Wait, Opal tried to escape?" There was an unusual timbre to Artemis's voice.

"Yes, Artemis. _Tried. _We caught her before she even left the prison. It was a fairly pathetic attempt, really. Anyway, who under the earth could..."

But she was interrupted again, this time by the Commander. "Major Short, we have no way of knowing which Frond-forsaken fairy is behind this until we get to Tarasov. Don't waste any energy thinking about it. He's not listening anyway." He gestured to Artemis, who, indeed, was sitting with a glazed expression on his face.

They lapsed into silence again. Holly watched as Artemis's expression altered slightly with each new thought. She marvelled at the change the last few years had wrought in the boy - man - whatever he was now. It was odd how the only Mud Man and his cronies to kidnap her were the only humans to have changed her mind about the entire human race.

Five minutes of uncomfortable silence later, a muffled horn beeped outside.

Root jumped up. "That has to be Butler. The entrance to this shuttle port is in the middle of a forest, nobody else would know how to find it."

He turned to the entrance and marched towards it, effortlessly managing to wake Mulch up with a sharp slap to the dwarf's shoulder as he went. Holly and Artemis followed slightly more sedately: Holly because of tiredness, and Artemis from an uneasy feeling as to what state he would find his oldest friend in when he saw him again.  
**  
Somewhere inside the Russian Border, 9:03 a.m. ( 2 GMT)  
**  
The first fifteen minutes of the journey had been spent in silence. Butler had nodded to them all as they clambered over the sodden forest floor to where a sleek black jeep was waiting, its engine idling. He hadn't even risen to Mulch's complaints about the exposure to sunlight he was receiving, and how it was damaging the hide that the 'ladies loved'.

Artemis had taken the front passenger seat, as he was the only other human in the group and so on this occasion was the least likely to attract attention. This plan seemed to work, as they were waved through the Russo-Estonian border after a cursory sweep of the car - although Butler's flash of his fake diplomatic passport may have had something to do with it - and as soon as they crossed the border, the two elves had unshielded and Mulch had been disentangled from the bungee rope that had shared his hiding space in a compartment under the passenger seats.

"So far so good." Holly said, pressing her nose against the tinted glass and watching the wild Russian terrain whisk past with undisguised longing.

Root was somewhat more professional, turning to Butler and asking, "Nobody questioned you when you told them your requirements, did they?"

"Tinted glass. 'Invisible' compartments. Completely bullet-proof. Most tourists ask for this sort of vehicle nowadays to take them up the mountains on a fishing trip. We'll blend in perfectly."

He said this without changing his position at the wheel. Root shrugged and fell back in his seat as Artemis turned round to face the back seat passengers. "So, what're your thoughts on dealing with Mr. Tarasov?"

Holly answered first. "One of us -," she indicated the Commander and herself, "-flies in shielded to take a look through his things. That way we have the element of surprise over whoever his friend in Haven is."

But Root was shaking his head before the Major had even finished her sentence. "Won't work. If he's at home he'll see the objects moving, and because he knows about the fairies he's not just going to assume that 'ghosts' are behind it."

"Well, maybe he won't be home." Holly retorted before remembering herself. "Sir."

"I think we need to sacrifice the element of surprise for certainty." Artemis said, effectively shutting Holly up. If there was one thing she'd learnt, it was not to argue with Artemis when he came up with a plan.

"So we go in there and threaten to break things if he doesn't tell us what we want to hear?" Root asked, noting the irritation on his Major's face with amusement.

"Not quite that, either. All we need is to show him that he's not as clever as he thinks he is."

Mulch snorted. "That's your grand plan? To make him look stupid? I'll get the chessboard then shall I, and you can challenge him to a game."

The boy glared at Mulch before continuing. "Tarasov has proven twice over that looking intelligent is incredibly important to him. It stands to reason that if we call his bluff, his mental position will be severely weakened, and therefore he will be easier to exact information from."

"And you're basing this on what exactly? Psychology?" Root asked, a vein pulsing in his forehead.

"Yes. Unless you think that breaking into his home and asking him nicely to reveal his fairy source will work?"

The Commander growled at the obvious insolence in Artemis's voice. "Fine." He snapped. "But if that goes wrong, I'm breaking things."  
**  
Inside City Hall, 7:03 a.m.  
**  
The guests were getting restless now.

While it was true the presence of almost all of the LEP had initially calmed them, having spent over three hours trapped in the same room they were beginning to climb the walls. Literally.

Trouble Kelp was doing his best to quieten the mob, taking up a position on top of the bar counter to shout at the group of younger elves who had decided they knew better than the trained LEP officers in the room. Apart from there being little point to their endeavour - the ceiling flattened around the edges before taking the shape of the dome in the centre - before they even reached the flat part of the ceiling they would be immobilised by the criss-cross pattern of stun guns covering the mid-levels of the room and ensuring that no fairies would be able to enter the town hall from above. It was yet another security invention Foaly had deemed necessary after watching a film created by Mud Men who never left their bedrooms; and, because it was a security device, it would have remained active after the power failure.

The problem was nobody was listening to Trouble. The elves continued climbing, buoyed by the encouragement of their friends and the crowd below who, after three hours trapped in one room with little knowledge of what was happening to their families or the city as a whole, were beginning to consider any escape attempt as their salvation, no matter how stupid it was.

They were almost level with the barrels of the guns now, and only went faster when Foaly clopped over to attempt to explain, in his usual patronising manner, that they were morons and deserved to be knocked out and fall to what could well be a rather sticky end if they believed he hadn't thought of climbing out. Trouble sighed, leaving his makeshift soapbox and pushing through the crowd towards the centaur, hearing whispered conversations about an LEP conspiracy as he went.

When he reached the foot of the wall beneath the climbers, instead of trying once more to address the crowd, Trouble spoke directly to Foaly.

"Is there any way they can avoid the guns?"

The centaur turned sharply, surprised by the oddly rational voice to his left when he was surrounded by a mass of uninformed party guests demanding to be heard. "No. The guns are fitted with motion sensors, and can swivel three-hundred and sixty degrees in their cradles. Anything larger than a pin will be hit by almost fifty beams before it knows what's happening."

"Great. And they don't believe you?"

"They think it's an LEP cover-up, designed to keep all the major politicians inside the Town Hall while the officers remaining outside spearhead a revolution in the population."

Trouble nodded slowly. "Impressive. Are you sure you're helping me? Crackpot theories about government disintegration are usually exactly your cup of beetle juice."

"Only when I'm not involved in the conspiracy."

"Ah."

Foaly stamped his hoof in frustration. "They're not listening! We need to show them what'll happen if they reach the path of the guns. But how?"

There was no answer from the elf, which caused Foaly to look round, affronted at the prospect that he was being ignored. Instead he found Trouble crouched on the floor, fiddling with his shoe.

Before the centaur had time to ask what he was doing, the would-be Commander straightened up again, holding his right shoe. Without further explanation, he threw it as hard as he could, right into the path of the guns, which reacted at once. Light flashed through the air at an incredible rate, and Trouble's shoe hit the floor, smoking and forlorn-looking, in front of a crowd completely silenced by the display.

Typically, Foaly was first to recover. "Nice to see you're thinking on your feet." He gestured to Trouble's now-exposed right foot, covered in a grey sock complete with a hole where his big toe poked out.

The elder Kelp grinned before turning to face the now muttering crowd, noting the shamefaced descent of the climbers in his peripheral vision.

As he spoke, all eyes in the hall were on the handsome elf. Except one pair.

One, rather faded, pair was watching the screen of its owner's purple communicator: an owner who laughed eerily before shutting the lid with a snap, and returning from the shadows to the edge of the enraptured throng.

* * *

Who wants more? We're just getting started!

Reviewers get a shoe-less would-be Commander of their very own. Hole in sock optional.


	7. Act Four

The Private Wound

**Summary: **Artemis begins to question his intelligence when a mysterious man manages to trap him in his own home, seemingly effortlessly. Will the fairies have to save themselves this time?

**Author's Note: **Yup, it's that time again! As always, _muchos besos _(Apologies to any Spanish readers for my flagrant abuse of their language) to my beta, **ilex-ferox **and her amazing Grub-wrangling abilities. And punctuation-wrangling. And anything else of a general wrangling nature. :)

**

* * *

Pskov, 9:10 a.m. ( 2 GMT)  
**  
"We're here."

Butler turned the engine off as he spoke, and the silence of the Russian morning intensified. To their left was a small, dismal park, completely deserted and with a playground rusting in the centre. On their right, over the potholed road, was a rundown building covered in graffiti.

"Tarasov lives at number twelve," Holly said, consulting the biography she had brought up on her communicator. "That's the top floor." She pointed as she spoke, and sure enough, one room on the second floor stood out from the rest, with metal grilles over the window and an expensive-looking satellite dish fastened to the wall.

"Any security blindspots?" Artemis asked, noticing the security cameras dotted round the entrance. There was no doubt in his mind who had installed those, since there didn't seem to be much else worth watching in the empty neighbourhood.

The Major jammed the helmet she had taken from the supply closet in the shuttle onto her head, recoiling as the smell of stale sweat met her nostrils. After a few seconds fiddling with the dials on the side of the visor, she turned her gaze towards the entrance to the block of flats. She was checking the ion patterns of the security beam, Artemis knew. They had used that particular filter before when stealing back the C-cube from Jon Spiro.

Another few seconds passed as Holly visually swept the building.

"There are a few gaps," she said. But Artemis judged from her expression when she removed the helmet that it wasn't as good news as he'd hoped.

"What?" he asked.

"Nothing big enough to hide you or Butler, I'm afraid. I'm not even certain they'll cover Mulch."

The dwarf looked up at the mention of his name. "Does that mean I'll have to wait here? What a shame," he said, stretching across the seat to make himself more comfortable.

"There may still be a way in," she stated, glaring at Mulch.

"I can't tunnel," he protested, immediately leaping to his own defence.  
"The entire town's built on a bed of limestone, I could smell it a mile away."

"I wasn't thinking about going _below_ ground."

The dwarf swallowed. He didn't like that emphasis.  
**  
LEP Police Plaza, 7:11 a.m.  
**  
"Argh!"

The techies looked up at the source of the noise just in time to see Grub Kelp fall down the last few steps of the staircase that led to their department. Nobody went to help him up, preferring instead to pretend to have missed the spectacle, as otherwise they would have to endure a tirade about the safety standards in Police Plaza and how he was filing a complaint.

A few moments later, a slightly bruised Corporal pushed himself up from the floor and turned immediately to the chief technician.

"What is it?"

The pixie he was addressing had the tact to avoid commenting on Grub's less than graceful entrance, instead steering the LEP officer towards a gently pulsing screen in the corner. Grub squinted at it, tilting his head as he attempted to work out what he was being shown. The pixie sighed, pressing a few buttons on the keyboard and bringing up a new window on the screen.

"We received this trace from a town just inside the Russian border a few minutes ago. Somebody's taken an LEP helmet."

"What?" Grub yelped, turning to face the smaller fairy with an almost comic look of terror on his face. "Do we know who?"

"We can't establish audio contact, I'm afraid. The helmet is an older model and should have been recycled years ago. It's purely by chance that we even noticed the signal it was sending out - one of the scopes was passing over Eastern Europe at the time."

The younger Kelp rubbed his brow as he thought. He was still the junior officer in Police Plaza tonight, and as such, he should technically report anything suspicious to his Commander, acting or not. However, there was a reason the techies had called him down to the Operations Booth and not Sool, after his bizarre orders to dismantle the laser that could have freed the fairies trapped inside City Hall, they were loath to pass on any information to the Internal Affairs gnome.  
He turned to face the chief technician again. "Is there any other way you can tell who's taken the helmet?"

"We're attempting to patch into the video feed now - it's a little less outdated than the audio channels - so that should give us some idea. But it'll take us at least five minutes to get a solid link." He wavered a little, on the verge of suggesting an idea Grub knew instinctively he would disagree with. "This was one of the first models to be fitted with a self-destruct..."

But Corporal Kelp raised his hand in a gesture clearly meaning _shut up _before the fairy got any further. The same hand beckoned the pixie closer and, in a whisper, Grub explained why he didn't want the helmet to self-destruct. "You heard me and Sool arguing before, didn't you? Holly and Root aren't in the Hall. When I contacted them earlier they didn't say where they were or what they were doing, but I don't think it's coincidence that this helmet has shown up on the sensors while the Commander and the Major are effectively missing."

"But what if it is? Activating the self destruct would be better for fairy security."

Grub bit his lip. It seemed like an executive decision might be called for – and he wasn't good at those. He spoke slowly, allowing pauses between words for him to second-guess himself. "If - somehow - a Mud Man has managed to find a fairy helmet, it'll take him longer than five minutes to work it out. Even Artemis Fowl -," the pixie shivered a little at the name, but Grub continued regardless, gaining confidence in his idea, "spent quite some time trying to get one open. We can spare five minutes. Once we know what we're dealing with, we'll make our decision."

The pixie nodded and the two fairies came out of their huddle.

"OK,." said Grub, turning to address the room as a whole. "I'm going to go back up to the main office now. Thank you for the update on the city's power supply."

Several puzzled faces turned to the Corporal. One fairy opened his mouth to point out that they hadn't discussed anything of that sort but Grub shot him a significant look."I'm glad you kept me updated on the power supply," he repeated, his voice heavy with meaning. The one who had been about to disagree shut his mouth with a snap. "Please inform me if there is any update on the video feeds." With that, he left the techies to return to Sool and, thankfully, to his beloved paperwork. _  
_  
**Pskov, 9:12 a.m. ( 2 GMT) **

Mulch was busy explaining why he couldn't use the now rather battered set of wings they had taken some time earlier on their ascent from Haven to fly to the roof of Tarasov's apartment building. As Commander Root was busy wrestling him into the wing straps anyway, he didn't seem to be convincing anyone. 

"I can't shield! Do you just want me to fly up there in broad daylight? Anyone could see me!"

Holly had to admit the plan had its flaws. However, she could see a service door on top of the roof that didn't appear to be watched by cameras; obviously their enemy didn't expect an aerial attack. To get inside from that door, they would need Mulch's lock-picking skills and, in the absence of any saner plans, had decided Holly and Mulch would use the wings to get to the roof and then Mulch would unlock the door. Holly was fine with the plan, as she still had just enough magic in her system to keep shielded during the short flight. Mulch, however, having lost his magic aeons ago when he decided to turn criminal, didn't have that ability.

However, they weren't sending Mulch up the building completely exposed. A sheet of grey tarpaulin would serve as a makeshift cover, while Commander Root would stay in contact with Holly via Artemis's mobile phone and her communicator, acting as lookout to give the pair advanced warning should anyone approach.

Not that the street was exactly bustling with activity. At ten past nine in the morning Root expected to see market traders and street urchins, or whatever the Mud people did on the streets nowadays, hassling passers-by into buying produce that they didn't want or need. But, he noticed with a hint of unease, they weren't there. There were no casual shoppers either. In fact, the only activity Root had noticed in the town since they drove through its boundaries at five past nine was the uneasy twitching of curtains as the occupants scowled at the unexpected noise from the sports vehicle he was currently sitting in.

Holly was once again fiddling with the LEP helmet that gave them the advantage they so sorely needed, as the only other pieces of fairy technology they had with them consisted of a set of stolen wings and her communicator. She was scanning the surroundings with a thermal sensor, looking for any humans inside the surrounding buildings who might notice the piece of flying tarpaulin. She found some activity, but nothing worth worrying about; most people were lying in bed, or slouched in front of television sets. Obviously this was not a very successful town. Tarasov himself - or a flatmate of his - was curled in front of a computer screen with his back to the window. It couldn't have been better timed had they planned it.

"I'd like to say, for the record," Mulch said, sniffily adjusting the straps of the wings after having conceded to Commander Root, "that I thought this was a bad idea from the start."

Artemis raised a disdainful eyebrow at the dwarf. "I hardly consider that a useful observation."

"It's not. I'd just like to have my comments noted for when this all goes horribly wrong."

Root growled. "Are you ready Major?"

Holly lowered the visor of the helmet. Her eyes met her Commander's and, from their expressions, it was obvious they were having the same thought. Roman soldiers were taught that it was better to fall on your sword than risk capture and subsequent torture by the enemy. It was the same with LEP fairies, and precisely why Holly had taken a helmet with a self-destruct button.

Slowly, she nodded. Root had no response other than a slight setting of his jaw. "Okay. Good luck, both of you."

Mulch made an elaborate showing of dropping his jaw at Root's statement, unhinging it for extra emphasis. "Why, Julius, I didn't know you _mfph_!"

His last word came out rather muffled as the elf stuffed the tarpaulin into his mouth.

Holly let out a breath of laughter at the look of shock on the dwarf's face before turning to Artemis. "I need your phone."

He nodded, handing over his top-of-the-range model, complete with wireless internet and e-mail capabilities. The Major flipped it over in her hands. "Hmm. It's a little primitive, but it'll do." She unclipped the back and placed the omni-sensor of the communicator onto the newly exposed circuits.

"Download?" a vaguely Foaly-ish voice asked.

"Confirm."

In another second, the voice said, "Download complete."

Holly removed the communicator and put the case back onto Artemis's phone. She pressed a couple of keys seemingly randomly on both devices before addressing Artemis.

"There. Now I've got the frequency of your phone stored on the Communicator we should be able to stay in contact easily."

The boy nodded. It made sense, since there was only one piece of fairy communication technology between them - the audio channels on the helmet were broken beyond repair - they would have to use at least one of the humans' mobile phones. They had decided that the trio in the car would keep the fairy communicator while Holly took the LEP helmet, as they would be able to view what was going on in the building via the comm screen, but Artemis had been wondering whether Holly would be able to reach the car on any audio channels given that they would be using completely incompatible devices.

He took the fairy communicator from her outstretched hand and met her gaze. "Good luck."

Holly squinted at him, searching for any trace of sarcasm. "Yeah. You too." She tapped her helmet's lens before putting it on her head. "I'm counting on you for any cunning plans we might need." And with that, she crawled over the seats to where Mulch was annoying the Commander and pulled out one of the cords and pitons they'd used to climb the chute several hours previously, looping it around her waist with practised ease while pulling a face at Artemis and Butler. "I'd like to say this was the first time tonight I've put my life in Mulch's hands, but..." she sighed and clipped the piton to the fine-grade cord.

Root popped open the door as Holly shimmered out of sight.

Mulch, newly draped in the tarpaulin, leapt out with the wings already whirring. The three left in the car heard a loud _thump! _overhead and a muffled "Sorry!" from Mulch, so they assumed he'd accidentally rammed Holly into the car roof. The Commander shook his head wearily before reaching over to close the door again. Artemis and Butler, meanwhile, watched the progress of what looked like a piece of moving concrete, flinching every time a hairy limb exposed itself.

**Haven City Hall, 7:12 a.m. **

"Kelp!" 

Trouble gritted his teeth. He was in the process of picking up the dress shoe he had recently hurled into the path of several narrow-bore lasers when an unnecessarily booming voice announced his name somewhere above his head. It was one of the less effective members of the fairy Council, whom Trouble had hoped to avoid for as long as possible.

As slowly as he could without causing offence, Trouble picked up his shoe - still slightly warm, although it had stopped smoking - and turned to face the Council member. As he expected, it was a fleshy male elf, slightly past middle age with a flushed face he couldn't quite put a name to.

"What in Frond's name are you playing at?" he asked, jowls shaking indignantly.

"Me, sir?"

"You are the most senior LEP officer in this room. Your name was the only other name put forward for promotion to Commander in Root's place. I assumed you'd have gotten us out by now!"

Trouble frowned. "What do you mean by 'other name'?"

All colour suddenly left the Chairman's face.

**Pskov, Russia, 9:15 a.m. ( 2 GMT) **

"Ouch!" Holly shimmered back into the visible spectrum atop the Russian rooftop, rubbing her thigh. Mulch didn't spare her a glance as he cut the throttle on the wings, instead choosing to inspect the metal door that led to the inside of the building. The LEP officer was almost amused by the strict professionalism the dwarf was displaying, until she remembered the Mud man phone crudely slotted in the sash of her dress. She plucked it out, feeling even smaller than usual as the supposedly compact device was larger than her palm. She typed in a number, and a moment later it was ringing. 

"Holly?" The voice that answered was distorted through the speaker, but Holly was relatively certain it was Artemis speaking.

"Are you okay?"

"Fine, aside from some interesting bruises. Mulch is checking the door now. Did anybody see us?"

"Not that we can tell. It's completely deserted down here. I don't like this at all."

The elf bit her lip slightly at that comment. "Maybe we're just lucky."

She heard a distinct snort from the Commander.

"How's Mulch doing with the door? You two need to get under cover as soon as possible."

Holly glanced over to Mulch, expecting to see him struggling with what looked like a thick, rusted metal door. Instead, she saw that the door was ajar and Mulch was nowhere to be seen.

A flood of adrenaline rushed through her limbs, and it took several deep breaths to stop herself descending into panic. If Mulch had been snatched he would almost certainly have made some sort of fuss about it. The most likely scenario was that the dwarf had managed to get the door open and, bored of Holly ignoring him while talking to the trio in the car, decided to scout ahead inside the apartment block.

Nevertheless, she shielded before approaching the door and picked up a piece of rusted piping that had, at one point, belonged to the plumbing work of the building. It was with this that she cautiously pushed the door open, unnervingly silently considering the trellis-work of rust that had grown across the door-hinges.

Inside, a bare bulb threw the narrow flight of stairs into bleak relief. It was swinging slightly in the breeze that had entered alongside her and made Holly feel as though the corridor was on a ship, rocking slightly with the roll and pitch of the waves. The stained inside door was also open, offering a glimpse of the wider corridor beyond. Holly, suitably shielded and fairly certain she was alone in the stairway, decided to risk a consultation with Artemis, Root and Butler.

She lifted the phone to her ear again, and Commander Root's voice invaded her head. "Short. Short! What's going on? What's your status?"

"Commander. I'm fine." She whispered. "Mulch is MIA though. Probably got hungry or something; there's no sign of a struggle."

"Be careful. We can see through your helmet lens, but it's not perfect."

"I know, sir. I'm shielded so even if Tarasov thinks to freeze the camera images like Artemis did, I doubt he'll be able to find me in person."

"Still. You're not running so hot. Remember what's at stake."

Holly rolled her eyes. She appreciated the Commander's concern, but the conversation was not leading in any productive direction. "I know, sir. Over and out."

She slipped the phone back through her dress sash, but kept the line connected for future use. Without Foaly whinnying advice in her ear every five seconds, Holly felt strangely isolated. It comforted her to know that there were two trained stealth operatives and one genius on the other end of the little black phone.

Carefully she began to walk down the stairs, hands braced on both walls to lessen her weight a little, remembering the penchant Mud men's stairs had for squeaking at inopportune moments. However, she managed to reach the bottom of the stairs uninterrupted.

The door was open wide enough for her to slip past without drawing attention to it and, by extension, herself.

The next hallway was slightly more cheerful than the bare, cracked walls of the stairway. There was a carpet under her feet that Holly assumed must have been cream at some point, but was now a dirty beige. There was also a window at the far end – grimy - but it illuminated the hallway enough to show the elf the four doors that branched off the corridor. Holly knew Tarasov's flat was probably behind one of these doors, she was on the top floor after all. She had no doubt that had Mulch been kidnapped, he would be currently sharing a room with Tarasov, but she also knew that there was a greater chance of finding the dwarf with Root and Butler inside the building, and that meant finding the fuse box of the building and destroying it, or near enough. It was the plan they had agreed on back in the car: Holly and Mulch would gain entry to the building, turn off the security cameras any way they knew how, and then the other three would enter the apartment block and proceed to interrogate Tarasov until they had some definite answers.

On reflection Holly had to admit their plan was a little optimistic, but, according to Artemis, if they could pull off the supposedly simple task, the Russian genius would be so shaken by the invasion of what he thought of as his safe haven he would tell them anything. _I guess Artemis has a little experience in that area, _Holly thought grimly, remembering the rescue the Commander, Mulch and herself had had to execute on Fowl Manor less than five hours earlier.

The Major was so absorbed in her introspection, she didn't feel the urgent vibration of the mobile phone at her hip, or the muffled crash of splintering wood several floors below. She didn't notice the shadow that fell across her, blocking out what little light the grimy window let through. But she did feel the cool metallic circle of the barrel of a gun at the nape of her neck, just below the LEP helmet. She heard the ominous click that signalled the safety being flicked off a Mud man weapon. Then she felt the raised button on her helmet, slippery beneath her suddenly sweaty fingers.  
The self-destruct button.

* * *

Well. Umm... 

Should I be getting into a lead-lined bunker?  
Reviewers who don't try to murder me in a variety of imaginatively brutal ways get a Grub Kelp doll. He says "But Mummy said!" when you pull the cord on his back. :)


	8. Interlude II

The Private Wound

**Summary: **Artemis begins to question his intelligence when a mysterious man traps him in his own home, seemingly effortlessly. Will the fairies have to save themselves this time?

**Author's Note: **There are a couple of references to this fic's pre-sequel...thing in this chapter, so you may want to have read A Root and Growl first. However, if not, the references aren't really integral to understanding the story, so can be skipped over with minimum implications if desired. **  
**I don't even know where to begin apologising for the massive wait between the cliffhanger of the last chapter and this one, so I won't, I'll just let you get on with reading it. :)

And don't forget **ilex-ferox** and her superhuman dedication in helping me with this chapter!

* * *

**Haven City Hall, 7:13 a.m.**

Wing Commander Vinyáya wasn't used to wearing a dress for so long. Neither, for that matter, was she used to being locked in an increasingly stuffy room with no-one but frightened dignitaries and airhead-socialites for company. Still, there was a first time for everything.

She was, although she would never dare admit it, rather enjoying herself. Admittedly the situation was tense and no doubt something dreadful was happening in Haven but, as one of her fellow councilmen had told her, whilst pouring her a generous glass of the finest gnommish spirit, there was little they could do inside the hall except wait for the cavalry to rescue them. At first she had been rather perturbed by his defeatist attitude but, as he continued to talk (and pour), she found herself beginning to agree with him and after he had excused himself a little while ago, she had settled, quite inelegantly, into a straight-backed chair somewhere near the bar.

It was in this condition that Trouble Kelp found her, as she was pouring yet another glass (although more of the alcohol now drenched the linen-covered table than the bottom of her glass), and mumbling good-naturedly to herself.

"Wing Commander, ma'am?" Vinyáya had been his flying instructor when he was a cadet and, despite being of almost equal ranking with her nowadays, Trouble always felt inferior when addressing her; as though she could still decide his future with a single syllable.

She peered blearily through the silver hair that had become unravelled from its top-knot. "Kelp! Would you like a glass?" The words sounded distorted, as though they were too big for her mouth to work around.

"No thank you, ma'am. I was wondering if you could tell me the other name put forward for the position of Commander? I was told that I was the only name mentioned."

Vinyáya laughed. "Of course you were the only - hic! - name. Chairman Fitzpatrick suggested Ark Sool but he was never taken seriously."

Sool...the notoriously caustic gnome with a hatred of the LEPrecon and retrieval division. He'd been made acting Commander during Opal's attempted destruction of Haven, while Root was presumed dead. It was during those five hours of Sool's rule that Trouble had seriously thought of quitting the force for the first time. There was no way he'd make a good Commander: he'd probably kowtow to the Council's every whim.

He was pulled out of his thoughts by a clammy hand on his shoulder. It was Vinyáya, pulling him closer to whisper conspiratorially into his ear. "You know, I think Fitzpatrick suggested Sool because he thought you'd be too much of a liability, like Root."

Trouble blinked and wrinkled his nose slightly. Her breath smelt strongly of alcohol, which was no surprise, really...although, Trouble was surprised by the effect it seemed to have had on her. Vinyáya used to host illicit drinking games amongst the cadets she taught. Anybody who managed to drink her under the table would be let off early morning drill for a month. It was a weighty prize, and as such obviously never won. She'd never manage to get as drunk as she was on one half-finished bottle of gnommish spirit. There was some foul play here.

"If I could just - have that - for a moment." He said, wrenching the bottle from her clutching fingers. Vinyáya made a half-hearted snatch towards the bottle before sinking back into an intoxicated stupor. He left his superior officer muttering something unintelligible to her fingers, and strode over to Foaly.

"I thought police officers weren't allowed to drink on duty?"

Trouble scowled by way of greeting, and dropped the bottle into the centaur's outstretched hands.

"No thanks; alcohol plays havoc with my balance. I have to make sacrifices to look this sophisticated."

"Your bow-tie's on backwards."

"That's irrelevant. Why've you given me a half-finished bottle of Atlantis's finest?"

Trouble took the bottle back from the centaur and removed the wadded-up tissue Vinyáya had been using in lieu of a cork. "Smell it."

"Aren't you a little old to be getting drunk just from the fumes?"

"Just smell it."

Foaly pouted, but brought the bottle to his nose and inhaled sharply. "Is that what they're calling quality spirit now? Smells like Mud man beer. Someone's not switched the bottle, have they?"

"No, the drink's still colourless. I was wondering whether you could tell if it had been spiked at all?"

The centaur sighed. "I'd like to help you Trouble, but in case you haven't noticed, I'm not exactly in a lab at the moment."

Trouble gritted his teeth. "It's just..."

"Just what?"

"Nothing. A gut feeling, that's all."

Foaly clapped the elf on the shoulder. "You know, you should listen to those**,** Root does, it's probably all that's kept him alive over the years. Then again, I suppose his is easier to hear than yours."

The Major laughed and Vinyáya, over on her lonely table near the bar, began to snore loudly on the table top.

**Pskov, Russia, 10 minutes earlier**

"So you're sure you weren't in that chute?"

Artemis dug his nails into the leather armrest before forcing the answer out. "For the third time, I was mind-wiped and under attack from a bio-bomb. I doubt I had time for a side trip down a magma chute to the centre of the earth to save an elf I didn't know existed."

Root sat back down with a huff. "Fine. I was just so sure it was you."

The pair lapsed into silence, having rarely spoken unless there was an urgent reason to do so. Both watched the massive form of Butler outside the entrance to Tarasov's apartment building, wishing he'd hurry back to the jeep and relieve the tense silence.

Root glanced at the apartment's façade. "They're nearly on the roof now. I hope Butler's got the permission for Holly to enter."

Artemis didn't reply. Although they couldn't see the Eurasian's face, Artemis guessed from the slightly exaggerated movements of the parka that was serving as a disguise that the bodyguard was having a little trouble with reticent residents.

_Ring! Ring!  
_  
The new sound startled both the fairy and human. Artemis recovered first, and grabbed the fairy communicator lying on the walnut dashboard. He answered it casually, as though it were second nature to him. Root let out a disapproving _humpfh.  
_  
"Holly? Are you okay?"

"Fine, aside from some interesting bruises. Mulch is checking the door now. Did anybody see us?" Holly's voice filled the jeep's interior, as clear as though she were sitting next to them.

"Not that we can tell. It's completely deserted down here. I don't like this at all." Artemis checked the road again to be certain, and caught Butler's eye. The giant manservant nodded and pushed the now-unlocked door to the apartment building open. So they had permission to enter. Everything seemed far too easy.

"Maybe we're just lucky." Holly said, but she didn't sound very hopeful. Root snorted.

"How's Mulch doing with the door? You two need to get under cover as soon as possible."

She didn't answer. Artemis checked the communicator for any faults. Finding none, Root resorted to official language to try and get a reply from his missing officer. "Short? Short! Come in Major Short!"

There was still no reply. Root let out a frustrated sigh. "We have to get in there. They could be in real trouble."

Artemis nodded, and Root noticed that he was - if possible - paler than usual. They opened the doors on either side of the jeep and clambered out. Root, shielded, ran to Artemis's side and pulled him towards the building's entrance. _I hope we're not too late._  
_  
_**Apartment building entrance**

He'd forgotten how cold it could get in Russia.

The parka was drawn up and over his shaven head, as much for warmth as for a disguise. It didn't help, of course, that he was attempting to gain entry to a building without any knowledge of the building's workings other than knowing a hostile genius lived in the twelfth apartment. However, the woman he was talking to over the intercom seemed to be unsure of her own name, let alone capable of masterminding the systematic destruction of an Irish genius, so he felt fairly confident.  
"Yes, ma'am. Some of the occupants' electricity has failed. We're here to check the fuses."

"So why are you talking to me? My electricity is fine, thank you."

"No, ma'am," he spoke quickly; she had already disconnected him once. "I need you to let myself and my colleagues in before I can sort it out."

There was some incoherent mumbling from the woman for a moment, then the door lock clicked open. "Fine. But leave me alone."

A dead tone sounded down the line. She had left the speaker. Butler pushed the door open and dragged one of the decorative potted plants in the alcove in front of the door to keep it open. He then stepped back outside to let Artemis and the Commander know it was safe to enter. He caught his young charge's eye and nodded. It was now the manservant's job to remain near Tarasov's apartment, lying in wait to assist the two fairies if they needed it, and to that end, he decided to occupy the stairwell two floors below Tarasov's. Near enough to be useful, but far enough away to avoid detection.  
At least, that was the plan.

He had just reached his intended platform when a faint panting sound camefrom the stairwell below. Taking no chances, he stepped into the shadows on the landing and drew his Sig Sauer. The panting grew louder, turning into a wheeze, and was accompanied by heavy footfalls. Butler clicked the safety off.

"Short! Short! What's going on? What's your status?" The voice echoed throughout the stairwell and the manservant recognised it immediately. He returned his weapon to the holster. A faint, breathy noise answered the Commander's question - he presumed the person the elf was talking to was whispering - and was followed by a muffled laugh and an angry, clearer "owch!" So Artemis was with the fairy. It was time to make his presence known. He stepped out into full view of the stairs, and was mildly surprised to only meet the gaze of his young charge.

"What are you doing in here?"

Root answered, his disembodied voice coming from somewhere to Artemis's left. "Mulch is MIA and we lost contact with Holly for a while. We thought they might be in trouble, and that we could be more use nearer to the action."

The Irish boy's bemused expression suggested otherwise, but Butler ignored it. "So you've re-established contact?"

"With Holly, yes. She's still apparently undetected, but I don't know how much longer her shield will last."

Butler brushed a hand over his shaven head; it was a simple way to relieve tension. Everything about their plan seemed to be based on little more than blind luck. He wondered whether Tarasov had succeeded where so many others had failed - to perturb his principal enough to get him to make mistakes. "Do we have any idea where Mulch is?"

"He's right here." A voice behind them answered.

The look on their faces made delaying his entrance worthwhile, Mulch thought. If only he'd brought his camera.

"Diggums!" Root's voice sounded even more threatening when the fairy himself was invisible.

"Commander! Didn't see you there."

The elf growled before shimmering back into the visible spectrum. "Why have you abandoned Major Short?"

"I got bored listening to your soldier-speak and decided to look ahead. Good thing I did, too. Tarasov's on the move."

"What?" It was Artemis who spoke this time. "Does he know we're here?"

"I don't know, it didn't exactly come up in our conversation, Artemis." The dwarf's voice dripped with sarcasm.

"I'll check it out," Butler said, drawing his Sig Sauer for the second time. "Artemis, you'd better go back to the car. This could get dangerous."

"I'm hardly going to be safer on my own in a strange town. I could be some use here."

The manservant gritted his teeth. "Just stay out of trouble. Please." With that, he began to climb the stairs. Mulch watched him leave.  
"Watch the fire door, it squeaks!"

Root, meanwhile, had turned back to the communicator, and was attempting to contact Holly to warn her of the potential danger. "She's not answering again." His voice was calm, but Artemis noticed some of the colour had left his cheeks.

"I'm sure she's fine. She's still shielded. Like she said, even if he spots her on camera, he's not going to find her in person."

"Even if he does find her," Mulch said, settling on the staircase, "she's not exactly the type to just lie down and give up. I've got scars to prove it."

Artemis wrinkled his nose at the dwarf, and the trio lapsed into uneasy silence.

Silence that was quickly broken by an urgent whisper from above. "Commander!" Butler's head appeared over the balcony railing. "I need a distraction, quickly!"

Root reacted immediately, the soldier in him taking over. "What sort of distraction?"

"Something loud. I need to mask the squeaking of the door."

He nodded, and set off down the staircase. Artemis, puzzled, craned his neck to look up at his bodyguard. "What's happening up there, Butler?" But the answer was lost beneath Root beginning a countdown. Butler disappeared from view.

"Three, two, one!"

The sound of splintering wood rattled throughout the confined space of the stairway. Artemis had no idea how the metre-high elf had managed to create so much noise, but that was the least of his concerns against what was happening two floors above his head that would require a distraction of that volume.

**LEP Police Plaza, 7:20 a.m.**

"Corporal Kelp?"

Grub jumped at the sudden voice, spilling sim-coffee over several important documents. "Who's that?"

"My name's Laurel, sir. I'm a technician." A window opened on the Corporal's computer, displaying a video feed of a pasty elf sitting far too close to the camera. "You told us to inform you if anything interesting was to appear on the video feeds?"

"Yes, yes. Well?"

"I think you'd better come and see this for yourself, Corporal."

**Pskov, Russia, 9:19 a.m. (plus two GMT)**

Holly's head was spinning. She was standing in the bare, dingy hallway of a Russian apartment complex, shielded, and yet some jumped-up Mud man had managed to sneak up behind her undetected and was pressing the cold barrel of a gun right into the back of her neck. Training caught up with her, and it was with slightly clammy fingers - her only admission of the fear she felt at what she was about to do - that she felt for the raised self-destruct button on her helmet. Once pushed, acid would be released from a sealed layer beneath the plastic of the helmet, eating into the device and destroying it in seconds.

The safety regulations for the helmet dictated that no fairy should be wearing the helmet when the button was pushed, as the acid would not discriminate between plastic and flesh, but it was an unwritten agreement that, following the Artemis Fowl disaster, no fairy should allow themselves to be caught alive if possible, and that led the helmets to be nicknamed 'suicide machines'.

Her fingers slipped on the no-friction helmet. _So this is how it ends. Not with a bang, but with a violently acidic compound._

"Drop the gun."

Holly blinked.

"I said, drop the gun."

The barrel that had, a moment ago, been burrowing into Holly's neck was suddenly removed and a heavy clattering sound indicated that the insistent voice had been obeyed. She turned gingerly, in time to see the massive form of Butler frog-marching an unknown man, wearing what appeared to be skiing goggles**, **into Evgeny Tarasov's apartment.

"Major Short!"

Holly blinked again as her red-faced Commander approached, eyes focused on a spot roughly ten feet away from where she was actually standing. She unshielded.

"What happened?"

Root pinched the bridge of his nose. "We're not sure. It appears Tarasov has had more contact with the fairies than we thought. Those goggles weren't just a fashion statement."

"LEP filters?"

"It looks that way."

The Major sighed. Nothing was ever as simple as it appeared. "So now what?"

"We let Butler spend some time talking to our new friend." Artemis appeared from the staircase, followed by Mulch, a faux-concerned look on his face.

Holly grimaced at the meaning. "Is that really necessary?"

"There's nothing else we can do. Tarasov is far more prepared than I anticipated, and if things really are as bad as you say in Haven, we don't have time to figure out Tarasov's involvement for ourselves."

The elf said nothing, but her look was mutinous.

"Well," Mulch said, stretching his arms above his head. "As long as we're stopping here awhile, we may as well check out what Tarasov has in his fridge."

**Haven City Hall, 7:22 a.m.**

Something had gone wrong.

Not that he could say he was all that surprised. Humans were unreliable at the best of times, and when their pride got involved, they may as well be written off. He had hoped for slightly more time, but in the end his own plan was secondary, and there would be plenty of time in the future to bring it to fruition. For now, he had to focus on completing the part he was being paid for. Two thirds had already been executed without fault, and the final part required no more than a bottle of spirit laced with sedatives. Now all he had to do was spark off a little mob mentality. He walked over to one of the more honourable council members, sitting with his wife - a notorious gossip - and a researcher for PPTV, the prominent underground television channel.

"Good evening ladies," he inclined his head at the wife and then the researcher, "Councillor."

"Good, Bentwood? This is hardly my idea of a good evening."

The pixie smiled, sliding into an empty seat. "Quite. I wonder what's taking Mr. Foaly so long to get the doors open? They are, after all, his own invention."

The researcher lifted her head. "I'm sure he's doing his best. After all, we should be grateful they work this well - he designed them to keep City Hall secure, and they're working wonderfully."

Bentwood scowled, "but of course, Miss. Caballine. However, in my experience, Foaly never releases one of his own inventions unless there is some design flaw for which he can create an upgrade."

Caballine looked shocked.

"Anyway, it's not Foaly's lack of ingenuity that worries - or, in fact, surprises - me. Other than Major Kelp's flashy attempt to keep us complacent by destroying a shoe, we appear to have been let down by the LEP. Wing Commander Vinyáya has passed out on a table and soon-to-be-Chairman Root and his protégé, Major Short, are nowhere to be found."

The councillor sat up. "You're right of course, Bentwood. Root has never been with his beloved LEP in a crisis - remember Cudgeon's coup? He's always off playing the hero, making others look like fools."

The pixie nodded almost reverently, inwardly grinning. His final phase would be even easier to complete than he had imagined. The council was full of malcontents and ex-LEP Commanders gone to seed, jealous of Root's continuing adventures. The gossipy wife was already looking for her equally chatty friends and soon the entire hall would be alive with suspicion and paranoia. A rebellion against the LEP. No wonder Bentwood had chosen a Russian human.

* * *

Ooh, the intrigue!  
No? Nevermind.

Reviewers who forgive me for the torturous wait for this chapter get their own snazzy set of fairy-viewing goggles. They're also rather handy for deflecting sun glare in the himalayas. So it's the best of both worlds, really. :)


	9. Act Five

The Private Wound

**Summary: **Artemis begins to question his intelligence when a mysterious man manages to trap him in his own home, seemingly effortlessly. Will the fairies have to save themselves this time?

**Author's Note: **As usual, thanks are due to **ilex-ferox**. The Beta. The legend.

* * *

**LEP Police Plaza, 7:23 am**

"What in the name of Frond are they doing?"

The question came from Corporal Grub Kelp, who was watching a black-and-white camera feed streamed from an old LEP helmet that was resting on what looked like a coffee table. From the camera's rather limited viewpoint they could see the back of a dwarf ravaging the interior of a refrigerator, the profile of a human male squinting at a computer screen and, most importantly, the pretty female Major, sitting on a grubby countertop, toying dispassionately with the hem of her dress and occasionally glancing uneasily at a scene behind the camera. Every so often, their old Commander would walk in front of the camera, apparently drinking something foul judging by the look on his face.

Grub bit his lip. He had believed that Holly and Root were doing something vitally important elsewhere, from the agitated tones of both during the brief conversation they had had a few hours ago. But now, to see them sitting around and drinking - if his suspicions were correct - with none other than Artemis Fowl, he wasn't so sure.

"Corporal?" The techies were watching Grub carefully. "What do we do now?"

The younger Kelp cleared his throat nervously. Decisions larger than what to drink at Spud's Spud Emporium were best left to his brother, who was currently trapped in City Hall and relying on Grub to get him out of there. He clenched his fists. "The three fairies we can currently see have been positively identified as Major Holly Short, ex-Commander Julius Root and ex-convict Mulch Diggums. Right?"

"Yes."

"And do we have any idea what they're doing?"

"Drinking some LEPretrieval sim-coffee, from the looks of it," one of the braver techies responded, gaining a few strained smiles from his colleagues and the best I'm Not Amused look the Corporal could muster. It was common knowledge in Police Plaza that Grub Kelp made coffee for the retrieval division, and even more widely known that a dwarf's recyclings were generally more fluid.

"Hang on a minute," another nameless pixie said, pointing at the screen showing the feed from the helmet. "What are they doing now?"

A few moments of anxious keyboard-tapping ensued, during which Grub felt strangely nervous, and then the footage sputtered into life on the plasma screen in the middle of the room, the grainy quality reduced by running it through a quick clean-up program.

Grub swallowed nervously. Something big was definitely happening. Holly had moved from the countertop and had pushed the human away from the computer. Root appeared to be literally kicking Mulch Diggums out of the door and - Grub shivered slightly in recognition - Fowl's enormous bodyguard Butler momentarily blocked the view of the camera as he dragged an unwieldy shape out of the door with uncharacteristic alarm. Holly was still arguing with the boy Grub now realised to be none other than Artemis Fowl, and attempting to shepherd him away from the computer. Her face was contorted in anger and - was that fear?

The dumb show was put to an end by the reappearance of Butler. His barrel chest was heaving but his pace didn't slacken as he crossed the room and picked up both his charge and the LEP Major and hurried back out. The subterranean techies were left, astounded, watching footage of an empty room.

"What was that about?" Breathed a pixie to the left of Grub, but the question was lost in the collective gasp from the others watching the video as a flash swept the room, momentarily whiting out the camera footage. Silence followed this gasp, then panic gripped the room.

Grub, standing in the middle of the room, was completely nonplussed. Frantic elves darted between one computer and another checking readouts from screens that shimmered and changed before Grub could read the first line. He gathered from the general attitude in the room that the whiteout had been caused by more than a chance reflection as the sun rose, but his attempts to collar a techie and find out exactly what had happened were failing.

The technicians could have swarmed all night trying to figure out the cause of the white flash, were it not for an internal mail message for Corporal Grub Kelp. It was colour-coded red meaning urgent asGrub well knew, although not from personal experience. His brother Trouble got the lion's share of red messages.

As one, the techies swivelled to look at the Corporal. One helpfully volunteered a laptop so that Grub could open the message; a recorded video clip. Fingers shaking with adrenaline, he pressed 'play'.

**Haven City Hall**

Rhodius Bentwood watched as the seeds of suspicion he'd planted took root in the minds of the frightened occupants of City Hall. _Took Root, _he thought, _that's almost a joke.  
_  
He chose to sit with Wing Commander Vinyáya, although conversation was limited as she snored on the tabletop. He didn't mind. The view from their corner of the room was enough to keep him occupied.

And what a view it was. The LEP's golden fairy, Trouble Kelp, had resorted to climbing onto the bar top with his hands raised, palms facing the increasingly hysterical crowd in the universal gesture of _Don't shoot me. _Bentwood almost felt sorry for the elf: he hadn't done anything wrong, just followed a little too closely in his commanding officer's footsteps. The sight of that obnoxious centaur, however, stiffened his resolve. As his employers so often reiterated, the only way his own scheme would come to anything was if theirs succeeded. It required a lot of patience, but after all his years of waiting, patience was second nature to the pixie.

They were pulling at the would-be Commander's trouser hems now; paranoia giving way to anger. It was like being at a Riverbend concert. Bentwood frowned. If he let this carry on much longer, there was no doubt some of the more panic-stricken guests at the ball would be calling for Kelp to be burned at the stake. Now seemed to be perfect for one member of the LEP to make a sudden breakthrough.

Surreptitiously he opened his communicator - carefully protected from his electromagnetic pulse by a highly specialised case designed to mimic a Faraday cage. He sometimes wondered whether the centaur realised how easy his systems were to beat when you thought like a Mud Man.

The little device flashed once as it recognised Bentwood's fingerprint on its omni-sensor. Then it popped open and displayed a small, gnommish menu on its crystal screen. He pressed a button.  
_  
Call Sool? _The device asked.

The pixie's finger hovered above the keypad for a moment. _Confirm._  
_  
_**Pskov, Russia**

Tarasov's apartment was small and had a forlorn sense of neglect about it. _Rather like Tarasov himself_, Holly thought. Piles of yellowing science journals rose from the floor like stalagmites, to meet the real stalactites that grew from the ceiling, fed by a five-year infestation of damp.

Butler commandeered the far side of the apartment, where he was proceeding to bind Tarasov's hands with masking tape. The rest of the group remained near the filthy kitchen, although all that separated them from the prisoner was a plastic countertop with an algae-covered fish tank tucked in the corner. Walls were at a premium in this apartment block.

Mulch, naturally, went straight to the Russian's fridge and began to empty it systematically. Root scowled at the dwarf before collecting a chipped glass and filling it with tap water. It was a habit Holly had noticed before; the Commander liked to keep his hands busy during times of stress, hence the fungus cigars. However, neither of these actions held Holly's attention for very long. Upon entering the apartment, Artemis went straight to Tarasov's computer. It was an old model, the off-white colour of computers in the mid-90s, with many more modern silver or black components added on; an odd patchwork of technology.

"What are you doing?" she asked, watching as the boy brought the computer out of its standby mode, drumming his fingers impatiently on the desk.

He didn't answer for a few moments, chewing his lip as he figured out the pass code. The computer beeped once as he typed the right numbers and the screen flickered and changed, showing a black desktop image with folders littered on the left hand side.

"Artemis?"

He looked up with a start at the elf, who had repositioned herself on the countertop. "I'm searching his computer for anything relevant. I'm sure once Haven is back to normal, Foaly can detonate an data charge in the hard-drive, but for now I just want to know how he got into Fowl Manor."

Holly nodded. She knew how much the attack on his home must have shocked Artemis, and understood his desire not to see it happen again.

She appreciated, too, how necessary it was for Butler to interrogate Tarasov for information, but that didn't mean she agreed with it. She settled onto the counter and fiddled with her skirt hem, occasionally shooting dissatisfied looks across the room.

A few uneasy minutes passed. Butler had not yet started questioning Tarasov, preferring to sit in front of the Russian, perfectly still, and leave the man's imagination to do all the work. The only sound, therefore, was the persistent clicking of Artemis's fingers on the old computer keyboard.

"Wait a minute..." The noise on the keyboard stopped. All three fairies turned to look at the boy.

"What is it, Artemis?" Holly asked, aware that whatever must have stopped the boy in his search couldn't be good. He was squinting at the screen, as though what was written there would change if he looked hard enough.

"There's a file here named...'Novikov'."

Mulch looked unimpressed. "So?"

Artemis ignored the question, looking over to Butler who had turned away from the captive at the mention of Novikov.

"Is it encrypted?" Butler asked.

There was silence as he turned back to the screen and clicked on the file. Holly had no idea what the importance of the name 'Novikov' was, but from the way the two humans were acting, it was serious.

Once the file was opened, several sub-folders appeared, each distinguished by a single number from one to seven. Artemis frowned and moved the mouse to select the folder marked '1'.

Before he had chance to click the icon, however, the screen went black. He stared at it for a second, his rational mind resisting the urge to slap the monitor. He'd been inches away from revealing potentially crucial information about the man who held his father's freedom to ransom.

The urge was quelled rather quickly by the appearance of a series of numbers on the monitor. The group stared at them in confusion, for a moment, when they began to change.

Butler was the first to realise what was happening. His body seemed to have sensed it even before his mind began to do something about it. A countdown. He manhandled Tarasov into a fireman's lift, the latter swearing fluently in Russian. He shouted to the others, although Root and Holly had already begun to move. The Commander stumbled over to the dwarf, who seemed reluctant to abandon the contents of the 'fridge.

"But Julius - !" He didn't get much further than that. Root lifted his foot in a kicking motion, and Mulch got the message. Dwarves take any threat to their hindquarters seriously.

Holly, meanwhile, was having more trouble attempting to drag Artemis from the computer. As soon as the countdown began, he'd pulled the computer station away from the wall and was frantically analysing the wires and circuit boards.

"Artemis, we don't have time for this!"

"It's not that...there's no explosives here...I don't see what could possibly happen at the end of the countdown."

Holly gritted her teeth. _He certainly picks his moments.  
_  
"Artemis!" She shouted again, her voice straining on the edge of panic as the numbers ticked past in the corner of her eye.  
They only had a minute left. _It's not enough time.  
_  
"Holly, it's another of Tarasov's schemes. To take our eyes off the proverbial ball."

"Would you bet your life on it?"

He hesitated. That was all she needed. She grabbed his arm and started to pull him towards the door, where Butler had reappeared. "I thought you were right behind me!" the Eurasian said, scooping the two unceremoniously under each of his massive arms. There would be time to chastise them both later; living was the priority at the moment.

The trio hurtled down the stairs faster than Holly thought possible without mechanical intervention. Not for the first time, she found herself admiring the bodyguard's proficiency under stress. They emerged on the Russian street just in time to see a cylindrical object snake its way into Tarasov's window. A few seconds after that, by which time they had crossed the street and were being bundled into the jeep by the manservant, a blue flash shone out of the apartment windows, looking to all the world like the bright light emitted from a television set. But Holly was in no doubt that the two goldfish in the tank were now upside-down.

"Well," Mulch said cheerfully as Butler turned on the engine and began to pull away from the kerb, "no adventure is complete without at least one brush with death."

Root scowled. He hated it when the dwarf was right.

**Haven City Hall, 10 minutes earlier**

"Ladies and gentlemen, please!"

Foaly snorted from his hiding place behind the bar. "I hope you're using those terms loosely."

Trouble, standing on top of the bar with his arms spread wide, couldn't spare a disparaging comment for the centaur, busy as he was watching the _crème de la crème_ of Haven's social and political society descend into an unruly mob. If he had been a fan of Mud Man literature, Trouble would have found several parallels with _The Lord of the Flies. _And there was no doubting who Piggy was.

Several of those fairies closest to his feet were attempting to seize them. What they were planning on doing if they caught him was anyone's guess. Trouble doubted they knew themselves.

"Ladies and - ladies and gentlemen!" He tried again. It was hopeless; he couldn't have been heard over the frenzy even if they cared for what he had to say.

"Ladies and gentlemen." A new voice joined the cacophony. This one was different though. Amplified. The speaker had barely raised his own voice, but the loudspeaker function on the communicator he held before his mouth augmented the sound a hundred times. The crowd stopped its clamouring and turned to look at the tiny pixie standing on the stage. Foaly looked out from over the bar.

"But how is his communicator working?"

The majority ignored the question, swarming over to Bentwood - Trouble was certain it was him - and looking up at him with the calmness that comes from renewed hope.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he said again, an indulgent smile gracing his lips, "I have just this minute managed to make contact with the LEP acting Commander, Ark Sool. He has, I'm afraid to say, bad news." Bentwood tapped a few buttons on his communicator, calling up video footage of the gnome and projecting it onto the wall behind the stage. The fairies remained silent, awaiting the message. He pressed 'play'.

"Good evening, noble and esteemed citizens of Haven," the message began. Both Trouble and Foaly pulled a face at this obvious display of sycophancy, but the egos of most fairies in the room were too large to realise they were being flattered.  
"I am afraid I have to be the bearer of bad news on what should be such a _happy _occasion." The oily smile on his face slipped, momentarily, into a sneer. "As many of you are already aware, Haven experienced damage to its infrastructure earlier this evening. And, at around three forty-five am, the entire city suffered a power cut. In the following hours, our loyal team of LEP technicians have worked to restore power and mobility to the main city. However, due to a security malfunction in City Hall, the steel doors have remained sealed."

"Malfunction my left hoof," whispered Foaly. Sool continued, oblivious to the seething quadruped.

"We have also managed to track down the cause of this catastrophic set of events." On screen, the gnome paused for effect. Trouble wondered whether he'd ever considered becoming an actor. "I am afraid, dear friends, that it was the result of an attack by a human."

Whatever calm had been restored by the appearance of working technology was shattered in an instant. Sobs of fear and anger at discovery drowned out the rest of Sool's message, and Bentwood was forced to wait several minutes for sufficient calm so that the rest of the video could be played.

"The human's name is Evgeny Tarasov. A reclusive genius, he lives alone in a small town in the west of Russia. We have reason to believe he gained intimate knowledge of the fairies when he hacked into the computer systems of the only other human to have made contact with the fairy race: Artemis Fowl."

Foaly twisted his head to watch the video feed at the mention of Artemis's name, although this had provoked a fresh wave of fear from the guests and the message became inaudible once more. Trouble sat down heavily on the bar top.

"Artemis Fowl. Why am I not surprised?"

"I am." Foaly said, helping himself to a glass of water. "I've tried to hack Artemis's systems before. They're damned hard to crack - I had to use cutting edge fairy technology almost every step of the way just to figure out his passwords. Then there are the files he's encrypted with eternity codes; they took months to solve."

"So what are you saying? Sool is lying?"

"Maybe. Maybe this Tarasov did gain _intimate _knowledge of the fairies after reading Artemis's notes on us. But maybe he'd been given a magical push in the right direction first."

Trouble frowned. "That doesn't make sense. Why not just tell this man everything straight off the bat? It seems like a ridiculous amount of effort to access one of the securest servers on earth just for a little extra knowledge."

Foaly sighed wearily. "Knowledge is power, Major Kelp."

**LEP Police Plaza**

"Corporal Kelp?"

One of the technicians was peering into his face with a worried expression on their own. "You've gone as white as a sheet."

Grub swallowed and waved them away with an annoyed grunt. He wasn't used to grunting at any LEP official other than his brother, but then again, he'd never been important enough to get away with it before now.  
The message Sool had sent him was obviously intended to reach those trapped in City Hall. That meant Sool had managed to establish contact. He wondered how his brother was doing.

The video didn't make for easy viewing. According to the gnome, the cause of all of Haven's current problems lay with a human named Evgeny Tarasov. Grub shifted uncomfortably at the mention of western Russia. It sounded exactly like where Holly and the Commander were. But it was the signing-off message that left Grub most ill at ease.

"However," it had said, "do not be alarmed. As I speak, a bio-bomb has been sent to Tarasov's apartment. He will shortly cease to be a threat. Then our technicians will switch their attention to rescuing you unfortunate people and this entire incident can be successfully contained. Please remain calm, and trust myself and the technicians to free you."

Grub's mind was racing, trying to make connections with seemingly random events. _Western Russia. Artemis Fowl. An attack on Haven. _He had to admit that on the surface - especially coupled with the footage he had seen through the LEP helmet, with what looked like Artemis Fowl in the apartment described by Sool - the story seemed almost plausible. However, as the angry scoffs from the techies proved, Sool had never consulted them; in fact, he had actively stopped them from mounting a rescue on city hall. A small group of pixies were also conducting a conversation to Grub's right about the flash they had witnessed on the video footage from the LEP helmet. Now that the flash had been positively identified, the pixies were expressing their outrage at the way the acting commander had behaved - killing (or so he thought) a human without knowing they were unquestionably guilty. Grub thought miserably of the paperwork he would have to complete for that venture.

"Corporal Kelp?" one of the pixies had broken away from the group and derailed Grub's train of thought.

"What?"

"We," the pixie indicated to his friends, eager for them to share some part of the blame, "thought, in light of recent developments, that you should call Commander Root and Major Short again."

"Why?"

The pixie winked. "Because I'm sure they'll be delighted to know who's bio-bomb nearly killed them."

Grub stared at the techie, thinking of what Root did to anybody who had a part in the Plaza's annual game of _hide the fungus cigars_. He found himself warming to the pixies' idea.

* * *

What do you make of that, then?

Reviewers get to join in with LEP Police Plaza's annual game of _hide the fungus cigars. _They do so at their own risk, though. :)


	10. The rustling of the sweetwrappers

The Private Wound

**Summary: **Artemis begins to question his intelligence when a mysterious man manages to trap him in his own home, seemingly effortlessly. Will the fairies have to save themselves this time?

**Author's Note: **Like Foaly, I'm back like a rash. A nice one. :)  
So out of practice it's untrue - if you spot anything dodgy, don't hold back. I need whipping back into shape. That said, enjoy!

**

* * *

**

**City Hall**

"What?!"

The hall had finally quietened down enough to hear the last part of Sool's message. At the mention of the bio-bomb, Trouble had sat up, visibly shocked. "He can't just send a bio-bomb to deal with this Mud Man! What if you're right? We need to know who the fairy behind him is."

"I've got a fairly good idea." Foaly said, watching as Rhodius Bentwood accepted the adulation of the council members. Trouble knew this must have hurt the centaur's pride. "I just don't see how his communicator is still working, when everyone else's is completely flat."

The elf pinched the bridge of his nose. "Much as I'd like to speculate, Foaly, now isn't the time. How did Sool get authorisation to use the bio-bomb? You need full council approval to get the activation codes."

"So?"

"_So,_ all members of the council have been in here with us for the last four hours, eating beetle pâté with no access to the outside world. Sool either executed the attack on his own, in which case councillors would be calling for his badge right now, or they already knew this was going to happen."

"Trouble," Foaly said, laying a hairy hand on his friend's shoulders, "you're beginning to sound like me."

**Somewhere near the western border, Russia**

Holly was not happy.

Not only had she been rather brusquely thrown into the back of the jeep, landing sprawling across Mulch, her Commander and their captive, Evgeny Tarasov, but had then suffered the further indignity of having Artemis Fowl heaped onto her back. It wasn't the most delicate display of packing Holly had ever seen.

"Well hello to you too, Major Short." Mulch said, winking. "I don't let just _anyone_ get this close."

Holly wrinkled her nose at him as she pushed herself up into a more suitable sitting position, not helped by the lurching start of the vehicle. "Mulch, I wouldn't want my worst enemy to get as close to you as I just have been. I'll be tasting earthworms for a week."

Mulch gasped in mock offence, but Root cut across him before the dwarf could think of a comeback. "Would you two stop flirting and tell me what the hell just happened?"

Holly pointedly brushed some imaginary dirt off her dress before answering. "Bio bomb, sir."

Root cursed. "I know that, Short. What I want to know is why a bio-bomb was sent to this Mud Man's flat -," here he gestured angrily at Tarasov, "-whilst we were inside, and to the best of my knowledge the only people who could authorize such an attack are trapped _incommunicado _in city hall?"

Holly shrugged. "Opal Koboi didn't have council approval for the bio-bombs she used."

"Are you suggesting Koboi is behind this?"

A collective shudder ran through the group.

Artemis cleared his throat. "Let's not rely on speculation."

"Then what do you think is going on?"

"Occam's Razor."

The Commander rounded on the boy. "I've been awake for thirty-six hours, Fowl. Who in Frond's name is Occam and why should I care about how he keeps his beard in check?"

"Occam's Razor is a maxim attributed to William Ockham, a medieval nominalist. It states '_Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem'_. Jumping to the conclusion that Koboi is behind the attack isn't the simplest explanation of events, given that there is no evidence Koboi has escaped from prison."

The jeep jolted as Butler turned off the tarmac road into the forest that hid the fairy shuttle port.

"So what is the simplest explanation of events, genius?"

Artemis pinched the bridge of his nose, glancing at Tarasov. "I'm not sure yet. None of this makes any sense. Our guest here is going to have some very tricky questions to answer."

**E91, Estonian Border, five minutes later**

Artemis and the fairies were sitting inside the shuttle port alongside their captive. As a precaution, the fairies had thrown Butler's parka over Tarasov's head during the last part of their journey, in order to protect the secret location of the shuttle port. They had also chosen not to remove it until Butler returned from his sweep of the area, to make sure they were alone. During the silent wait, Holly watched Tarasov's form with interest. The Russian didn't move, aside from the impatient shuffling of his feet from time to time, and this was precisely what Holly found fascinating. She had held many people against their will, and without exception they tried to escape or bargain with her. Tarasov's calm appearance (if she didn't know any better, Holly would have called it indifference) unsettled her more than the violence she had had to deal with in the past.

The pneumatic hiss of the shuttle port entrance heralded Butler's return from his sweep. "Empty."

Root nodded. "Time to remove the hood."

Holly stood and moved behind Tarasov before pulling the jacket from his head. The Russian blinked against the light, despite being diffused as it was; either side of the 200-pound manservant's head. "So, Evgeny." Butler smiled, an action which sent chills through the LEP Major behind Tarasov. "You're going to tell us exactly what is going on here, and I might only break a couple of your fingers. _Vy ponimaete?_"

Tarasov grinned back, apparently unperturbed by the threat. Butler cracked his knuckles. Before he could do much more, however, Artemis stood and laid a restraining hand on his bodyguard's forearm.

"Artemis -,"

"Look at his irises, old friend."

Butler sighed inwardly. He had been looking forward to a little payback. If Tarasov had been under the influence of the _mesmer, _as Artemis evidently thought, it would be difficult to justify a missing tooth or two. Nevertheless, he leaned in towards their captive (noting that the Russian didn't flinch - another unfortunate sign that the man was under the influence), peering into the watery pupils. A tense moment passed, broken only by Mulch's indifferent, rumbling stomach.

"It's subtle, but I think you're right." Butler took a step back, allowing for more expert analysis from the two LEP officers.

"D'Arvit."

"Does this mean we're back to square one?"

Artemis bit his lip. "Not necessarily. Tarasov was _mesmer_ised into hacking into my servers. Why? I'm sure every fairy has much more intimate knowledge of their own culture than my files could ever provide."

Holly slumped into one of the shuttle port seats. "What are you suggesting, Artemis? That someone in Haven is conspiring against you?"

"That's exactly what I'm suggesting. I'm sure there are many fairies who still view me and my knowledge of your world as a threat, and what better way to get rid of me than by showing my security isn't tight enough to protect your secret?"

Mulch grunted. "That's dumb. They'd have known that at the first sign of trouble you'd come running to Major Short."

"But what if Major Short shouldn't be here? She should be locked inside City Hall at the moment, alongside Root, and anyone else who could rescue the situation."

"- like Foaly." Holly finished.

"Exactly. If Tarasov had gone public with the information, Haven would be powerless to stop him. The entire fairy species could have been exposed because of a breach in my servers."

Root had been drumming his fingers on the armrest of his seat during this conversation. Clever deduction always gave him a headache. "Tarasov wasn't going to go public though, was he? There's no evidence of that. And why would his accomplice send a bio-bomb to his apartment if he was so important?"

"The Commander's right," Holly said, looking defeated after the momentary excitement. "It wouldn't make sense for Tarasov to go public - it would mean whoever was controlling him would be found by the humans, too. No fairy wants that."

Artemis dropped his head into his hands. They were right, of course. It would be suicidal to want to expose the underground civilisation. _Unless…_

"What if - what if you're right? Tarasov was never meant to go public. One other human finding out is bad enough, and there are many on the council who would demand a mind-wipe if it happened."

"Still wouldn't work, Artemis. They'd be able to see he'd been _mesmer_ised, just like we can."

"Which is exactly why his apartment was bio-bombed. Keep him around for long enough to present a threat and show my security can be compromised, and then get rid of him before he incriminates the fairy behind it all."

"Well then, why Tarasov?" Root asked, intrigued enough to stop drumming.

Artemis waved the question away. He was sure of his theory now, and answering questions on it was wasting time. "Tarasov's a genius with a score to settle. It isn't impossible to believe he would be capable of orchestrating the plan himself."

The group sat in silence for a moment as they contemplated the theory. Mulch was the first to regroup. "This is all very well and good, but we still don't know which fairy is behind this, or why," he added as the group turned towards him, "the entire city is affected just to get to Artemis. Seems a little extreme, no?"

The question bounced off the walls of the shuttle port, looking for an answer. Finally, just as they were about to admit defeat, Root laughed. Holly started towards her commander, alarmed. It wasn't a sound she heard often.

"What's so funny, Julius?" Like Holly, Mulch had learnt to associate Root's amusement with the arrival of a Very Bad Thing.

In answer, the commander pulled out Holly's purple communicator from his breast pocket. "Corporal Kelp, please tell me you've managed to get into City Hall."

**LEP Police Plaza, 7:25 am**

"C-Commander." Grub faltered; he wasn't expecting to speak to Root. "We tried, sir."

"Tried?" Root's reply was soft, little more than a rush of static. "What do you mean, tried?"

"Sool overruled me - he said that using a laser to cut through the doors would kill half the people inside."

"What?! That jumped-up, bureaucratic…" The Commander's voice faded into the background and, with a rush of gratitude, Grub found himself addressing Major Short.

"So why are you calling, Corporal?"

"We thought you might be interested in hearing whose bio-bomb nearly killed you."

There was no reply from the other end of the line, although Grub thought he could hear snatches of a frantic, whispered discussion.

"How did you know about the bio-bomb?"

"We managed to patch through to the video feed of the helmet you took, which we've just had to remotely incinerate, Major, as you left it in the Mud Man's home." Grub couldn't resist the complaint - remote destructions meant hours of paperwork.

Holly's reply was forced. "Thank you, Grub. How do you know who was behind the bomb?"

Corporal Kelp smirked and nodded towards one of the techies who initiated the download. "You'll see. I'm sending you the file now. We thought it would be better for you to hear it for yourselves."

"Thank you Corporal. Goodbye."

Grub closed his communicator as the file finished sending. He wouldn't want to be in Sool's position once the Commander had seen _that_.

**E91, Estonian Border**

"Good evening, noble and esteemed citizens of Haven. I am afraid I have to be the bearer of bad news on what should be such a _happy_ occasion_…"_

The file started to play as soon as Holly's communicator finished downloading it. She hastily indicated to the others to gather round, leaving Tarasov sat, quite contentedly, on his own. Now they had established he had not been acting freely, he wasn't considered much of a threat.

"Who's that?" Butler asked.

"Ark Sool. Head of internal affairs and an ambitious little tick. He's acting Commander of the skeleton staff tonight."

"…we have also managed to track down the cause of this catastrophic set of events." There was a pause. "I am afraid, dear friends, that it was the result of an attack by a human." Another pause. Sool was obviously leaving room for his audience's reaction. "The human's name is Evgeny Tarasov. A reclusive genius, he lives alone in a small town in the west of Russia. We have reason to believe he gained intimate knowledge of the fairies when he hacked into the computer systems of the only other human to have made contact with the fairy race: Artemis Fowl."

Artemis smiled grimly. He had been wondering how long it would be before his name came up.

"However, do not be alarmed. As I speak, a bio-bomb has been sent to Tarasov's apartment. He will shortly cease to be a threat."

Root punched the air. "I knew it! I've never trusted Sool."

"Wait…Sool is claiming that Tarasov managed to shut down the whole of Haven…"

"And then he'll look like the hero for being the one to get rid of him and restore Haven, almost single-handedly." The Commander started to pace. "The rest of the LEP look incompetent, being trapped inside City Hall, leaving Sool to take the glory…and the promotion."

"What?" It was Holly's turn to speak. "Sool isn't up for any promotion."

"He nearly was. Some members of the council suggested he should become Commander of Recon and Retrieval instead of Major Kelp - calmer influence or some other troll droppings. They knew that with Sool at the head of the LEP it would be easier to control."

"So while Trouble's stuck in City Hall, looking helpless, Sool saves the day."

"It would seem so."

Artemis waved a hand between the two elves. "You're still missing something. Sool managed to get that broadcast into City Hall. From what you've told me, that ought to be impossible."

"Meaning?"

"There's an inside fairy."

**City Hall, 5 minutes earlier**

Foaly and the elder Kelp had taken shelter near Wing Commander Vinyáya's table. The other three-hundred-or-so occupants of the hall were on the other side, enraptured by the grey pixie on the bar-top.

"Typical," Foaly muttered. "The bad guys get the women looking at them like they're from Riverbend, and what do we get? A middle-aged battleaxe who can't keep her saliva in her mouth."

"To be fair, we don't know how many 'bad guys' are in the room. It might just be 'bad guys' following him." Trouble, resting his chin on his forearms, flicked the abandoned cork of a wine bottle as he said this.

"Will you stop it?"

"What?"

"Looking and sounding so dejected. You're supposed to be the next Commander of the LEP. How will I be able to needle you incessantly knowing that you fall apart so easily?"

"Well, what do you think I should do? I can't haul Bentwood off into a corner now, the crowd won't leave him alone."

Foaly nodded his agreement, eyeing the few people in the hall that weren't thronged about Bentwood. He was about to give up and challenge Trouble to a game of tabletop crunchball involving the cork and Vinyáya's mouth when he caught the eye of the only other centaur in the room.

"Maybe the crowd wouldn't let _you _alone with Bentwood, but what do you think they'd say to a PPTV researcher interested in getting an interview?"

Trouble followed Foaly's gaze. "I think," he said, lifting his head from his arms, "that might just work."

**Five minutes later**

"Doctor Bentwood! Doctor!" It was times like these that Caballine was grateful her mother had been related to Dr. LeGear. She managed to push her way through the crowd quite easily, as the smaller fairies moved out of the way to avoid being trampled.

"Miss. Caballine, always a pleasure."

"Doctor, I was hoping for a few moments of your time? I'm sure that, after the events of tonight, PPTV would be very interested in hearing what the saviour of the hour has to say."

Bentwood smiled indulgently. "Well, I'd hardly call myself a saviour, but I'd be glad to give you a minute or two." He climbed carefully from the bar-top, and the crowd parted in front of him like the Red Sea. "Where would you like to conduct this little chat?"

Caballine gestured vaguely. "It's really up to you, Doctor." Bentwood turned away towards the dining table reserved for the guests of honour, and Caballine gave a furtive thumbs-up gesture to Foaly and Major Kelp, both of whom were sitting as far away from the mob as possible. She sighed. Two of the best fairies under the world and they were terrified of a pixie with a pigment shortage.

"So," she began when they had settled and Bentwood had managed to procure a glass of gnommish spirit. "I hope you don't mind if I get straight to the point, Doctor Bentwood -,"

"Rhodius."

"_Rhodius._ I'm sure there are many other fairies eager to talk to you, and I don't want to take up too much of your time. Would you be able to tell me how your communicator is still working?"

Bentwood swirled the liquid around his glass, contemplating his answer. "You remember, I'm sure, that I told you Foaly never releases an invention unless there's a design flaw he can charge to fix?"

Caballine gritted her teeth. "I remember you mentioned something about that."

"In this case, none of Foaly's devices are equipped to handle an electromagnetic pulse. Almost every electronic device in here is subsequently useless. Perhaps all of this is a marketing strategy for Foaly's new communicators?"

The centaur ignored the jibe. "How could you possibly know what was causing the problem?"

"Acting Commander Sool told me - he and the techies found an EMP device somewhere in the outer hallways." Bentwood shrugged.

"So how have you managed to protect your communicator?"

He smiled. Caballine had to resist the urge to hit him. "Simple. I created a miniature Faraday cage around my communicator, cancelling out the effects of the electromagnetic pulse." The pixie pulled out his communicator as a demonstration. It was wrapped in what looked like fine-grade chicken wire.

"But how did you have the foresight to protect your communicator before it happened?"

Bentwood's smile widened. "Luck."

Caballine forced herself to smile back. "Thank you for your time, Rhodius. I'll leave you to your public."

"Thank you, Miss. Caballine. I look forward to speaking with you again soon."

*

Foaly watched the conversation between his girlfriend and the potential criminal with unease. He didn't even comment when Vinyáya began snoring, surprising and alarming Trouble. He didn't think any situation could be bad enough to stop Foaly from being glib.

Eventually Caballine trotted away from the pixie with a look of revulsion on her face, and Foaly exhaled loudly.

"What happened?"

"Hello to you, too," she responded tartly before settling at the table. "I found out why the electronics aren't working. There's an electromagnetic pulse device hidden outside this room."

Foaly thumped the table, making both Trouble and the cork jump. "Of course!" the momentary triumph dropped away to confusion. "How is his communicator still active, then?"

"He's constructed a…Faraday Cage around it. He suggested that the fact it's not a standard feature is your way to force people to buy an updated model."

The technician snorted. "Because many fairies will encounter EM pulses during their everyday life."

Caballine stroked a hairy hand. "He's bitter, that's all."

Trouble coughed pointedly, breaking the quiet moment. "This is good, though, isn't it? If we construct a Faraday Cage around one of our own communicators we might be able to reach Holly and the Commander."

Foaly sighed. "Do you know what a Faraday Cage is?"

The Major shrugged. "It can't be that difficult to build one."

"It's not. If you have a few spare yards of mesh with holes smaller than the frequency of the EM wave."

"…oh."

"'Oh' indeed."

"So now what?" Caballine asked. "Other than implication, there's nothing to suggest Bentwood isn't just paranoid enough to protect his communicator from EM pulses anyway, and just struck lucky here. How do we beat him?"

Trouble sat up. "What's that old Mud Man saying? If you can't beat them, join them." He stood up.

"Trouble…"

"We've lost, Foaly. I think it's time I joined the crowd." He nodded at the male centaur, almost imperceptibly.

With that, the fairy who would-be Commander stalked over to the other side of the room, to join the back of the throng around Bentwood, now returned to the centre.

The researcher glanced at her partner. "I wouldn't have pegged him for a coward."

Foaly grinned. "He's called 'Trouble' for a reason, Caballine. Just watch. This is going to be good."

* * *

Dear, oh dear - whatever's the tribulation with Trouble? :P

Reviewers (especially those bearing concrit) get to help Foaly make a Faraday Cage out of Skylar Peat's hairpins. Or they could just sell them on eBay.


End file.
